Henjiuyiqian Lamb Skewers / 很久以前羊肉串

Overview

Henjiuyiqian Lamb Skewers / 很久以前羊肉串 is a Chinese directly operated barbecue chain used by the source to explain why a recognizable dining brand can remain far below the store counts achieved by leading hotpot chains.

Current Profile

The bounded source describes a roughly 18-year operating history, corporate restructuring and executive changes interpreted as preparation for capital-market activity, and 148 stores as of September 2026. Fifty-two were in Shanghai and 41 in Beijing, making the chain’s scale materially dependent on two high-density, higher-spending cities.

Its operating model makes quality control visible but costly. The brand reportedly abandoned customer self-grilling after inconsistent results and relies on trained staff, while direct ownership keeps rent, fit-out, labor, and expansion capital on headquarters. Attempts to add lunch and delivery did not overcome the category’s gathering-oriented meal rhythm or rapid quality loss after food cools.

Key Characteristics

• A long-running barbecue chain with a geographically concentrated national footprint.
• A direct-operation model that favors execution control over franchise-funded opening speed.
• A mall-oriented format and near-RMB-90 average spend that may not transfer cleanly to lower-tier street-store markets.
• Staff-controlled grilling used to reduce the quality variation of customer self-cooking.
• Exposure to dinner, late-night, group-dining, delivery, and seasonal utilization constraints.

Evidence

• Scale and concentration: 高洁丝｜火锅连锁能开上千家，同样做聚餐生意的烧烤品牌为何扩张难？ reports 148 stores, including 52 in Shanghai and 41 in Beijing, in September 2026.
• Format and local fit: 高洁丝｜火锅连锁能开上千家，同样做聚餐生意的烧烤品牌为何扩张难？ contrasts the chain’s mall locations and near-RMB-90 spend with lower-tier markets where RMB 40-70 street barbecue is more typical.
• Cooking control: 高洁丝｜火锅连锁能开上千家，同样做聚餐生意的烧烤品牌为何扩张难？ says customer self-grilling produced dry or burnt skewers, leading the chain to use trained staff.
• Utilization limits: 高洁丝｜火锅连锁能开上千家，同样做聚餐生意的烧烤品牌为何扩张难？ reports unsuccessful lunch and delivery experiments and describes a summer-heavy demand pattern.
• Capital posture: 高洁丝｜火锅连锁能开上千家，同样做聚餐生意的烧烤品牌为何扩张难？ says the company completed a shareholding reform and executive adjustment interpreted externally as an acceleration toward listing.

Qualifications

Store count, city distribution, average spend, operating history, failed experiments, and capital-market intent are episode-reported rather than independently verified. One chain cannot establish the economics of all barbecue formats. Direct operation may support quality, but the source does not supply store-level revenue, margin, payback, closure, or cohort data needed to judge whether the model is profitable or merely slower to replicate.

What Changed

• Established the company as the central case for the wiki’s barbecue-chain scaling analysis.
• Separated visible store count from unreported unit economics and listing readiness.
• Identified geographic concentration, staff grilling, direct operation, and narrow usage occasions as the current operating profile.

Relationships

• Barbecue Chain Scalability / 烧烤连锁规模化 - central company case for demand, process, utilization, and capital constraints.
• Chain Restaurant Standardization - operating discipline challenged by cutting, skewering, marinating, and grilling variation.
• Restaurant Operational Fragility - thin-margin live service exposed to labor, rent, quality, and seasonality.
• Retail Site Selection - mall format and price point must fit local density and spending power.
• Local Market Proof - success in Beijing and Shanghai does not by itself prove transferability to lower-tier markets.
• Franchise-Led Consumer Chain Expansion - faster alternative whose quality-control risks help explain continued direct operation.