Tsui Wah Restaurant is a Hong Kong tea restaurant owned by Tsui Wah Holdings Limited. It has over 26 branches in Hong Kong, Macau and Mainland China, with 21 branches, one branch and three branches respectively, some of which provide a 24-hour service. The most famous one is in Wellington Street, near Lan Kwai Fong. It attracts celebrities and tourists from local clubs. Tsui Wah has attracted many pop stars such as Daniel Wu, Ron Ng, Bosco Wong and Kau Hung Ping, as well as financiers Ben Falloon and Derek Su Dan Rui. Many films also mention Tsui Wah because of its connection with the Hong Kong clubbing culture. Compared with many other tea restaurants in Hong Kong, it provides more varieties of Hong Kong-style food, and is more expensive. Its head office is the Tsui Wah Group Centre in Ngau Tau Kok, Kowloon. In 2012, it became a listed company in Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited.
Background
History
1960s- 1970s, have one branch
Mr. Choi Cheung Po first opened TsuiWah Ice Dining Room, the predecessor of Tea Restaurant, in 1967 at Mongkok.
1970s- 1980s, have four branches
Opened three new branches at To Kwa Wan, San Po Kong and Tuen Mun. They operated as the small scale café. However, the restaurants at Mong Kok and To Kwa Wan closed at 1971.
1980s- 1990s, have seven branches
1990s- 2000s, have 12 branches
In 1990s, following the opening of a branch located at Central District, TsuiWah begun to target at middle class customers.
2000s- now, have 26 branches
Entering the 21st century, the company opened TsuiWah Concept at Mongkok, mainly targeting at young generations.
First overseas TsuiWah Tea Restaurant in Shanghai was opened in 2009.
TsuiWah Tea Restaurant was opened in Macau in 2011
TsuiWah Tea Restaurant established in Wuhan in 2012
TsuiWah Tea Restaurant became a listed company in Nov 2012.
Nowadays, over 30 TsuiWah Tea Restaurant located Hong Kong and Mainland. 8 of them open 24 hours a day to provide night meal to customers.
Location
First Mongkok, then San Po Kong, now the TsuiWah Restaurant has its branches all over Hong Kong, including Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and New Territories.
Service format
Service hours vary by branch. Tsui Wah also provides take-away service, but it charges a fee for it, unlike most tea restaurant. Also unlike other tea restaurants, certain branches, like the one in Wellington Street, enforce a minimum charge during peak hours.
Advertising strategy
Originally, when Mr. Choi Cheung Po first established Tsui Wah in Mongkok, the restaurant was designed for the use of construction workers nearby during meal breaks, like many other tea restaurants. Food was served cheaply and efficiently to suit the needs of the construction workers. Eventually, as business grew, Tsui Wah begun to target middle-class people, white-collar workers, and travellers in Hong Kong, to differentiate itself from its competitors and earn more money. To that end, its first strategy was to increase prices, which are now significantly higher than tea restaurants like Tai Hing and Kam Fung. Its second strategy was the opening of branches in central business districts on Hong Kong Island since 1990, despite extremely expensive rent in those areas. This allows Tsui Wah to target middle-class people and travellers. This helps Tsui Wah market itself as high class, suggesting customers will find superior meals there. The third strategy Tsui Wah employed to expand its business among higher classes, was to enter the stock market in 2012, as the only listed tea restaurant at that time. Since then, Tsui Wah has been suggested in financial pages of local newspapers as a potential investment opportunity, thus generating favourable media coverage for the company. The last strategy was to invest in the cinema, especially Hong Kong-made films, to establish Tsui Wah as a traditional cultural icon of Hong Kong. In popular films such as Love in a Puff, Love in the Buff, Perfect Couples, and Lan Kwai Fong, Tsui Wah was portrayed as part of the daily routine of upper-class Hong Kong people.
Business model
Tsui Wah has engaged in standardisation of different aspects of its operation to archive consistent quality of their dishes and maximise the efficiency, calculability, and predictability of its business.
Food preparation
Unlike most tea restaurants, Tsui Wah has used a central kitchen since 2008 to provide consistent food in every branch. In the central kitchen, chefs are formed in assembly lines to prepare for different dishes, and a factory manager supervises for quality control. To support further expansion, Tsui Wah has planned to create a second central kitchen. All central kitchens will serve a radius of approximately 200 kilometres, or within a transport range of two hours to maintain food quality. Tsui Wah also engages in centralised purchasing in the operation of its central kitchen.
Service
Under the standardisation, speed of service has become one of the important elements to Tsui Wah's success. Use of the central kitchen helps decrease the amount of time used for preparing dishes at local kitchens. The company has calculated staff-to-table ratios to increase flow of customers. From the time customers come in to the time they pay their bill is planned to take place within 40 minutes. This kind of speed is made to compete with fast food restaurants.
Operations
Tsui Wah has a communal seating arrangement, such that customers must a share table with other customers during busy periods. The distance between each table in Tsui Wah has been shortened compared to other restaurants so that Tsui Wah can generate more business, allowing the company to boost income. Also, Tsui Wah has created a set of standard operating procedures for business aspects such as food booths, wait staff, cashiers, floor managers, chefs, restaurant managers and cleaning staff. Regular staff are required to wear uniforms to differentiate them from customers.
Management
Tsui Wah pursues standardisation in human resources as well, such as in staff training and team-building exercises. The company's management structure includes headquarters management, overseas management, a project team, a finance team, a human resources department, a corporate communication and marketing department, a new project team, a procurement department, a production team, an operations team, and the central kitchen. Tsui Wah offers certain training courses in 5S, a famous method for organisation from Japan, in employee training.
Information technology
Tsui Wah is one of the few restaurants that adopts information technology to facilitate smooth operation. For example, each staff member uses a personal data assistant to take orders. Orders are then delivered to chefs in the kitchen. The company also uses a computerised point-of-sale system for bill payment to increase efficiency. Through data, Tsui Wah seeks to make predictions to further increase efficiency.
