Tastien: From Sluggish Pizza to a Rapid Expansion of 10,000 Chinese-Style Burger Stores

Origin

Founder Wei Youchun was originally from Fujian. Between 2011 and 2013, he successively opened seven Wallace franchise stores, mastering the franchise playbook of Western fast food. During this period, he created his own brand, Tastien, starting out in Jiangxi in 2012 by making Chinese-style pizza—scattering Chinese ingredients over pizza crusts. However, business remained sluggish, and the brand struggled on the fringes for six years. The true turning point occurred in 2018, when the team developed freshly baked hand-rolled burger buns, replacing traditional butter bread buns with dough rolled by hand and baked on-site, paired with Chinese fillings such as preserved vegetable with pork (Meicai Kourou), Beijing roast duck, and Mapo tofu. This established the 'Chinese burger' positioning, instantly differentiating Tastien from McDonald's, KFC, and Wallace.

Milestones

Turning Points

• The 2018 R&D of freshly baked hand-rolled burger buns to replace traditional butter bread buns combined with Chinese fillings to establish the Chinese burger positioning was the true watershed moment for Tastien's journey from six years of sluggish pizza to a runaway dash toward 10,000 stores. Without this category innovation, there would be no subsequent franchise dividends.
• Officially opening external franchising in 2020, leveraging pandemic-era low-cost storefront locations and early Douyin local lifestyle dividends, transformed Tastien from a single-store operation into a franchise system. Store counts skyrocketed from 500 in 2020 to nearly 6,700 in 2023, with expansion speed driven by the franchise model.
• The denial by the brand of November 2023 rumors regarding a 7 billion RMB valuation financing round, coupled with the overall freeze in financing for the Chinese-style burger track in 2024, marked a shift in capital's attitude from bandwagon-chasing to wait-and-see. Tastien was forced to transition from capital-driven expansion to relying on franchisees and its own cash flow to push toward 10,000 stores.

Failures & Pitfalls

• From 2012 to 2017, the Chinese-style pizza category was niche, customer targets were blurry, and business was perpetually sluggish. Tastien groped around in a marginal track for six years, fully proving that the founding team's initial positioning was flawed. Had it not decisively swapped pizza for hand-rolled burgers, it might have been buried in the wave of Western fast food.
• Rapid expansion exposed food safety and service shortcomings, with repeated exposures of raw chicken, unqualified frying oil, and expired beef energy bars. Visits to Beijing direct-run stores revealed a busy and chaotic environment where service awareness needed improvement. Industry experts pointed out that delivery stability failed to keep pace with store expansion, and the payback period for franchisees stretched to 1.5 to 2 years with profit margins so thin they earned very little.
• Tastien did not build its own supply chain; marinades, chicken, and burger buns could be mimicked by competitors down to almost identical flavors at a lower cost. A spicy chicken burger could have its competitor cost pressed down to a little over 2 RMB, whereas Tastien's cost was 3 to 5 RMB. Brand homogenization combined with a lack of supply chain barriers left consumer mindset for Chinese burgers unstable, as the best-selling item on delivery platforms remained the traditional spicy chicken burger rather than a Chinese-style burger.
• In 2024, overall financing for the Chinese-style burger track halted, and comparable direct-run benchmark Jia Guolong Chinese Burger closed all 53 direct-run stores and pivoted on-site. Capital confidence in Chinese burgers ebbed, and Tastien's rumored new financing round at a 7 billion valuation was denied by the brand, compressing Tastien's IPO window and capital room.

Core Data

• Store count as of April 2024：7,254 stores (public data basis, independent review unverified)
• Coverage：22 provinces and 342 cities (public data basis, independent review unverified)
• Burger track ranking：Third nationwide (behind Wallace and KFC, ahead of McDonald's) (public data basis, independent review unverified)
• New stores added 2020-2023：316 / 450 / 2,289 / 3,000 stores (public data basis, independent review unverified)
• Sinking market store share：About 48% in tier-three and below (public data basis, independent review unverified)
• Per customer transaction：About 20 to 25 RMB (public data basis, independent review unverified)
• Single store daily revenue：About 6,000 RMB (barely breaking even) (public data basis, independent review unverified)
• Payback period：1.5 to 2 years (public data basis, independent review unverified)
• Full store investment：About 750,000 to 800,000 RMB (including rent transfer fees) (public data basis, independent review unverified)
• Financing valuation rumor：About 7 billion RMB in November 2023 (denied by brand) (media estimate, independent review unverified)
• Previous round valuation：3 billion RMB (when stores were around 500) (public data basis, independent review unverified)
• 2022 profit：About 200 million RMB (mainly from franchise fees and revenue sharing) (public data basis, independent review unverified)

Competitors / Peers

Tastien competes directly in the Western fast-food track against Wallace (19,976 stores), KFC (10,749 stores), and McDonald's (6,706 stores). The Chinese-style burger track has also squeezed out a batch of similar players including Jia Guolong Chinese Burger, Ranxiong, Jihuasi, Kenweiting, and Linbubu. Among them, Jia Guolong Chinese Burger closed all 53 of its direct-run stores in March 2024 and pivoted on-site, while most others stagnated around 20 stores in scale. Chinese-style burgers also face pressure from Chinese culinary brands making Roujiamo (meat burgers) and KFC introducing freshly baked flatbread burgers. Category differentiation is unsteady and supply chain differentiation is insufficient.