Hai Di Lao: Why is it So Popular?

Haidilao (海底捞) is a Chinese hotpot chain that has been increasing in popularity worldwide, with more than 400 restaurants around the world. The founder of the chain Zhang Yong (张勇) was recently claimed to be the richest man in Singapore. The chain has restaurants in China’s major cities and has expanded to other countries such as United States, Japan, and Indonesia.

The restaurant is known for treating customers like royalty. The customer service of the restaurant chain is the main thing that attracts most customers due to no other chains in China having this level of customer service. The restaurant provides many services such as free manicure, free complimentary drinks, and snacks while waiting in line, help cook the food and look after people’s children. The employees can also peel shrimps for you when asked. This is the reason many diners keep coming back to this restaurant time after time.

Even though people primarily go to the restaurant for its exceptional customer service, it doesn’t mean the food is by any means subpar. The restaurant allows customers to choose 4 broths for the hotpot base that no other hotpot chain offers. For a charge of 10 RMB per person, the restaurant offers more than 30 dipping sauce choices and unlimited fruits and appetizers. Haidilao also allows diners to experimentation with the food. On Tik Tok, a video sharing app, a customer has made a video sharing his unique recipe of putting a raw egg and shrimp paste inside tofu balls and the video received more than 100 million views. This made the restaurant become viral and caused many new customers and old customers to come to the restaurant to experiment with other viral combinations of ingredients.