[herchina.com]

 Zhang Lan owns a chain of restaurants called Southern Beauty featuring Sichuan cuisine, with 20 branches in mainland China-mostly in Beijing and Shanghai. “Chinese cuisine offers everything, including nutrition and taste, but what has been lacking is the packaging," says Zhang. “People in China didn't know how to present the food. I have changed that.”

An Idyllic Place

“Thanks for calling Southern Beauty. Here, you can enjoy the perfect combination of space and art, classics and extravagance. It is free, natural and you will find that life is splendid here. ” This is the ring tone for Zhang Lan’s mobile phone.

She started her first restaurant, “A Lan Restaurant”, in 1991 and realized that she had a passion for running business. Then in 2000, Zhang Lan opened her first Southern Beauty Restaurant in Beijing's World Trade Center. It was a Sichuan restaurant in a modern artistic atmosphere located within a top business environment in Beijing. Unlike other Sichuan restaurants, which serve the general public, Southern Beauty, according to Zhang's design, targets high-end businessmen. The restaurant prospered, surpassing Zhang's expectations.

The restaurants are decorated in an idyllic style with everything delicately arranged. So when you dine here, it is not only the dishes that satisfy you. The whole atmosphere makes you feel at home.

The restaurant is a combination of space and art, classics and extravagance. [herchina.com]

 

Why Name it “Southern Beauty”?

Sichuan cuisine is famous for its spicy flavor, indeed a sharp contrast to the restaurant’s name. Zhang Lan explained: “Sichuan is also famous for its beautiful scenery and is of typical southern Chinese atmosphere, so I chose the name.” At the same time, she chose the painted face of Sichuan opera as her company’s logo.

Before the birth of Southern Beauty in 2000, Cantonese restaurants dominated the market in Beijing, whose high prices turned away average professionals. From her 10 year's experience in running a restaurant, Zhang believed a cozy environment, tasty and clean food and reasonable prices were all attractive factors to this potential consumer group. To meet their needs, Zhang made Southern Beauty a luxurious restaurant by combining elements such as delicious food, fashion and artistic space. The restaurant creates an atmosphere of the waterside villages in southern China and gives people an elegant feel.

In seven years, Southern Beauty has expanded into a chain of 20 restaurants around the country, with sales of over 400 million RMB in 2005. Another unique part of Southern Beauty's legend lies in the fact that the group is completely free of any loans or debts. Southern Beauty, according to Wall Street Journal, has created "a new concept of Chinese restaurants".

Clear market positioning, Southern Beauty's key to success, was supplemented by standardized production. Zhang followed the examples of various international restaurants by setting quantitative standards for the selection of ingredients and cooking times for each dish. She spent time training Southern Beauty's cooks with these standards.

To further push standardization, Zhang imported professional managers from eminent foreign enterprises such as McDonald's and Coca Cola in order to benefit from their management experience and knowledge of the global market. Southern Beauty also employed many foreign marketing staff.

Landmarks in Southern Beauty History

In 2006, Southern Beauty was named a “Future Star of 2006 – one of China’s mid-sized companies with the most potential”. The CEO, Ms. Zhang Lan, represented Southern Beauty in receiving the award in Xi’an. At the same time, Ms. Lan Zhang was named a “Top-10 business executive” & a “Top-10 most influential entrepreneur in China F&B industry”.

On April 16, 2000, the first Southern Beauty restaurant opened in China World Trade Tower in Beijing.

On January 16, 2002, a Southern Beauty restaurant opened in Shanghai Times Square, the first restaurant in its chain to open in Shanghai.

On August 29, 2004, a Southern Beauty restaurant opened in Chengdu Thistle Theatre, a move that signals Southern Beauty has taken a foothold in the hometown of Sichuan Cuisine.

On August 28, 2005, Lan’s Beauty 881 restaurant opened in Shanghai, signaling its first step into the high end market.

On September 2005, South Beauty signed a contract with the world famous designer Philippe Starck for the design of Lan’s Beauty World in Beijing.

On February 2006, the Southern Beauty Management company was established, which has been seen as the founding of its franchising operation at home and abroad.

…

Zhang Lan does not care too much about money. Most of her friends are artists; few are business people. She prefers talking about art and culture to markets and finance. She loves her work. She said that life is like a journey with an ending and that appreciating the view along the way is much more important. “I won’t take a rocket to finish this journey. A rocket can take you to somewhere much higher, but can make the journey much faster and shorter as well.”

(Source:herschina.com & sina.com.cn/Translated by Women of China)