This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on October 19, 2021.
Frost & Sullivan data cited in the article put China’s pub sector at 2% of total foodservice revenue in 2020, with 35,000 pubs nationwide. It also projected that revenue in China’s tier-three-and-below markets would grow at a 26.7% CAGR from 2020 to 2025, well above first- and second-tier cities.
Helen’s, the listed Chinese pub chain, was being discussed at the time as a “third place” story for young consumers. The article argues that this positioning is real but not enough on its own: operators still need to look at dwell time, pricing, site selection, product mix, and digital operating efficiency.
Before Helen’s IPO, another Hong Kong pub operator, Bar Pacific, had already listed. Its market value was weak at the time, only HK$51.6 million. The article uses this comparison to argue that Hong Kong alone was not a strong market proxy for mainland China’s pub-chain opportunity.
Helen’s offline social-space story is compared with Starbucks’ “third place” narrative. Starbucks leans more toward business socializing and work occasions, while Helen’s story is centered on university students and young consumers.
But long dwell time is a constraint. Based on competitor research cited in the article, pub customers often stay for three hours or more. Helen’s prospectus disclosed average daily opening hours of seven hours per store. Even if Helen’s could reduce average customer stay to 2.5 hours, the maximum table turnover would be only 2.8 times, leaving limited upside from turnover alone.
For operators, the central question is simple: in offline foodservice, is a longer guest stay actually better, or does it limit productivity?
The article credits Helen’s for accurate pricing and customer targeting:
Helen’s was one of the early companies in China’s pub sector to promote the concept of “beverage-style alcoholic drinks.” Its logic was that young offline social occasions demanded lower-alcohol, more varied, easier-drinking products.
Other operators were also exploring this direction. Chengdu-based Erma had done a lot with beverage-style alcohol, though with a different positioning. Night-economy venues such as SPACE were also operating strongly, though they were not listed and therefore had less public data.
Ubrew, a brewery that also produced for many brands, had franchised pubs and reached around 2,000 stores at its peak.
The article makes an important product-development point: products praised by craft-beer professionals are not necessarily the products mass consumers want. Drinks that score poorly in expert competitions may still be more commercially viable.
The market was also moving through a stage of affordability and taste development. Consumers had long accepted mass-market bottled beer. As incomes rose, beer under RMB 10 became easy to accept; with further spending power, beers under RMB 20 also became accessible. Many quality craft beers could already be found at around RMB 20.
That helps explain why products such as Ubrew’s sea-salt lychee beer and first-wort wheat beer had broader acceptance, while its collaboration with Jiuzhou Brewing, You Shou, had far less awareness. The article argues that craft beer and other alcohol categories need pioneers to develop new products, then operators must figure out how to make successful ones mainstream. Some fruit-flavored experiments by Jiuzhou Brewing had high costs.
In Helen’s early period, proprietary beer generated the highest sales revenue, so beer received a lot of attention. But beverage-style alcoholic drinks, especially fruit beers, became increasingly important.
In the first half of 2021, Helen’s proprietary-product revenue reached RMB 680 million, equal to 78.5% of total revenue. Within that:
As of June 30, 2021, Helen’s proprietary alcoholic drinks contributed RMB 420 million in gross profit, compared with only RMB 79.77 million in the same period the previous year, more than quadrupling.
Fruit beer and milk beer were broadly acceptable products because, in the article’s framing, they effectively turned fruit tea and milk tea logic into alcohol. Tianrun’s milk beer is cited as an example of an earlier market explorer.
Helen’s bottled beer products were all priced below RMB 10 per bottle.
One example: a 275 ml Helen’s craft beer was priced at RMB 7.8 per bottle, while a 275 ml Budweiser was priced at RMB 9.8 per bottle. According to Frost & Sullivan data cited in the article, comparable industry pricing for that Budweiser product averaged RMB 15 to RMB 30 per bottle. Helen’s used scale economies and bargaining power to offer Budweiser at 35% to 67% below the average market price.
Helen’s positioned itself as an “offline social platform for young people,” and it placed most pubs in urban areas where young people gathered.
In site selection, Helen’s examined the number of young consumers in the target area. These customers were more active on social media and could generate word of mouth. Helen’s also opened multiple stores in young-consumer clusters to increase density.
Its direct-operated pub model was relatively large:
As of December 31 in 2018, 2019, and 2020, and March 31, 2021, each Helen’s direct-operated pub averaged 36, 41, 45, and 45 tables respectively. Each table could usually seat four to six people.
The article cites Helen’s average daily sales per store at RMB 11,900. By comparison, Nayuki was slightly above RMB 20,000, and Heytea was slightly above RMB 30,000. Nayuki’s standard stores were 180 to 300 square meters, while Pro stores were 80 to 200 square meters.
The article cautions that comparing a pub with tea shops is imperfect, because tea-shop customers often do not sit for long. But the underlying operating logic is shared: hotels, restaurants, tea shops, and pubs all need to pursue productivity per square meter.
The article argues that digitalization was the least discussed but most important part of Helen’s model. The social-space narrative was still a story; digitalization directly improved operating efficiency.
Helen’s stores could reportedly operate with a standard staffing level of three people. The article contrasts this with Haidilao, whose business model is different but whose stores could have a standard staffing level of 100 people.
Helen’s had a self-developed Future BI system integrating CRM and ERP. It also built a unified visualized intelligent music-management system. At the time, only five employees were needed to control background music accurately and in real time across every Helen’s pub nationwide.
The company designed a national unified music library. Songs were tagged by mood based on BPM tested through software. Each pub could select music according to time of day, peak-period length, customer mix, holidays, and other factors. The system could also automatically adjust volume and tempo in real time based on same-day foot traffic.
For operators, the point is not music itself. It is that small digital systems can standardize atmosphere, reduce labor, and make a large store network easier to manage.
The article closes by noting that Helen’s share price had fallen below its IPO price.
On October 15, 2021, Helen’s share price fell nearly 7%, closing at a new post-listing low. On October 18, 2021, the stock suddenly dropped more than 20% intraday to a low of HK$15.78. Although it then rebounded quickly, it still closed down 3.78% and broke below the issue price.
The author also notes that the full Helen’s logo was interesting and suggested brand meaning worth looking up visually.
Note: IPO, share-price, market-value, and 2020-2025 forecast figures are historical and reflect the article’s October 2021 context.