Din Tai Fung has a cult-like following and is understood for lengthy waits. | Photograph: Shutterstock
In the event you had been requested to guess which U.S. restaurant chain generates probably the most income per restaurant, you may need picked a fine-dining chain, a steakhouse, or maybe the high-volume Cheesecake Manufacturing unit.
You wouldn’t have been significantly shut.
The model with the best common unit volumes is Din Tai Fung, an upscale-casual soup dumpling chain from Taiwan with 16 U.S. places.
Din Tai Fung generated AUVs of $27.4 million final yr, or almost double that of the following closest chain, the fine-dining steakhouse Mastro’s.
That’s in accordance with High 500 restaurant chain information from trade researcher Technomic, which confirmed the $27.4 million determine just isn’t a typo.
Based in 1958 in Taiwan as a cooking oil enterprise, Din Tai Fung later rebranded as a noodle store and by 2000 made its approach to the U.S. Right this moment, it has 180 places in 13 international locations and stays family-owned.
It’s recognized for its xiao lengthy bao, or soup dumplings, that are hand-made in its eating places in view of consumers.
And it has attracted a cult-like following on the West Coast, the place most of its U.S. eating places are positioned. The chain generated $411.6 million in gross sales final yr, a rise of almost 20% yr over yr, per Technomic.
To place its eye-popping AUVs into perspective, it’s like combining two Cheesecake Factories right into a single restaurant, or nearly 4 Chick-fil-As, or simply below seven McDonald’s, or 27 Bruegger’s Bagels, or 54 Yogurtlands.
Put one other manner, the typical Din Tai Fung location could be the Fifteenth-largest stand-alone restaurant within the nation, in accordance with our rating of the High 100 Independents.
To generate unit volumes of that magnitude, a restaurant typically has to do three issues: It needs to be huge, prospects need to spend an honest quantity, and it needs to be busy.
Din Tai Fung checks all three of these bins.
The chain’s eating places are massive, wherever from 5,580 sq. toes to 25,000 sq. toes at its sprawling new Manhattan location.
Its verify averages are excessive—about $55 per individual, in accordance with Technomic. Although particular person dishes are fairly priced—few are greater than $20—many purchasers order a number of objects to share with the desk. Soup dumplings are available in baskets of 10, and the menu is heavy on apps, wontons, greens and different shareables. It additionally has a full bar, which may additional increase verify dimension.
And eventually, its eating places are notoriously onerous to get into with no wait. In different phrases, they’re busy.
Clients can watch soup dumplings being made. | Photograph: Shutterstock
Din Tai Fung is a part of a wave of fast-growing Asian sit-down chains like KPOT Korean BBQ, Kyuramen and Kura Sushi, that are attracting prospects with their distinctive flavors in addition to experiences, comparable to Kura’s conveyor-belt sushi system.
In an in any other case sluggish yr for the casual-dining phase, gross sales at Asian chains rose 7.6%, in accordance with Technomic.
However Din Tai Fung’s AUVs put it in a league of its personal. The subsequent largest Asian chain by way of AUVs is the high-end Nobu, at $10.12 million per unit, adopted by Benihana at $6.46 million.
And it’s planning to develop its presence in North America. Final yr, it named its first CEOs for its North American division, brothers Aaron and Albert Yang, the grandsons of Din Tai Fung founder Bing-Yi Yang.
It just lately opened a brand new location in Vancouver and can quickly debut in Arizona, in Scottsdale’s Style Sq. mall.
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