Restarting Hangzhou’s Nightlife: Dudu

[Nothing or All]

Among my close friends in F&B,

one is the true artisan,

the other is the businessman who thinks like one.

Dudu clearly belongs to the latter—

when he talks shop,

he’s positively brimming with acumen.

Listen to Dudu, a post‑80s rising star in the Jiangsu‑Zhejiang nightclub scene, and you’ll soon realize he’s something else. Normally, seasoned industry bosses who come to observe and learn can’t help stashing their notebooks and reaching for a glass. But strangely, after a few rounds of drinks, they end up putting down the glass and opening the notebook again.

I quietly watched. The reason they first put away the notebook is that this new Hangzhouer who once worked in the Jinhua government is so pragmatic—his no‑nonsense insights beat any drinking contest. Since they couldn’t out‑talk him, the bosses wisely gave up: “Let’s just drink him under the table first” was clearly a saner plan. The second time they brought out the notebook was because they finally saw the light: Dudu’s capacity for alcohol is too heroic to drown, and his ideas, both in and out of the glass, are thoroughly sound. Better to sit up and pay attention!

Dudu’s glass is always swirling with not just clinks but the business wisdom of F&B moguls and corporate heavyweights. That universally known JOY Jiuyin is, to me, the one bar in Hangzhou where people can strip away pretense and still talk about something real.

Dudu can be so blunt that it takes people a moment to digest it—and then they discover his charm.

And so an hour‑long tipsy masterclass flies by. The bosses, swept along by the unstoppable Dudu, end up thoroughly satisfied, from street‑smart business wars to a brush with refined taste. There’s even a faint thrill of being intellectually roughed up. They come to their senses, like a fine aftertaste.

When he first chose the bar trade, it sounded all about profit. “Around 25%. Western and Japanese restaurants can usually hit that range, but Chinese is extremely hard—even Haidilao can’t reach it. Chinese restaurants generally run 10–15%, 17% at the absolute best. A well‑run place might show 20% on the books, but in reality, what lands in your hand isn’t 20%—that’s just what the accounting says.”

But in truth, he’s his own bar’s most devoted patron. Simply because he’s so in love with booze. By his early thirties, he already owned two brands: “JOY Jiuyin” and “Mr. Zui.”

Dudu was born in ’86. He says he wishes he were a post‑90s so he could run a few more years. “We made it relatively early. The year we succeeded, I was 26.” He still believes what he’s always held: everyone in this world, at least once in their life, will have a chance to summon their own miracle.

When he first started, his life was barely human. “Back then there were only four of us. We’d wake up and work, get hungry at night and just get drunk, using up every last bit of the urge to talk, constantly introducing our products and giving guests a good experience.” But very early on, he set the rule: never fawn over customers. Use great products as your competitive moat.

“I started as an assistant in the party and government office. I thought life in my twenties was just heading straight into retirement—a newspaper in one hand, a cup of tea in the other, writing official documents every day. Then my partner Xiao Xie came back from Beijing, and I decided to leave. The leader agreed.” Their first shop opened on Haiguan Road in Hangzhou and was instantly packed.

“At that time, people really had no concept of whisky—they couldn’t even tell the real from the fake. So when we put up an entire wall of foreign spirits in the shop, it was genuinely striking. Many walked in and felt we had substance. Of course, it also helped that all our whiskies were the real deal. In the early days we got huge support from quite a few industry big shots. I think that success came largely from an information‑asymmetry situation, plus our team’s incredible energy.”

But two months ago, on an evening, I saw the vast JOY Jiuyin like an upended empty bottle, with only five customers—myself included. The whole city of Hangzhou, once night fell, felt like a warehouse of discarded cardboard boxes: ornate yet useless.

Dudu’s eyes glistened a little. “It’s startup mentality all over again,” he said.

“Between 28 and 30, I got terribly cocky. That was wrong. The cocky period was when I missed the most opportunities.” He lowered his head. That very day he’d just dealt with a dispute about illegal structures with city management; the business had barely picked up before plunging into semi‑paralysis.

For a long time, Jiuyin firmly held the number‑one spot among Hangzhou bars. They had stores in every upscale area and visible commercial hub. “Right now we have seven shops in Hangzhou, the eighth is still being renovated, and across all cities we’ve got about twenty. All directly operated, no franchising. We mainly do whisky and cocktails, plus a small proportion of wine, champagne, and other drinks—very professional. The bartenders are solid. When we first started with whisky, we were already considered one of the more professional teams in China. So we’ve got plenty of whisky sources, including support from some big companies. And our guests are quite devoted: they come to Jiuyin to drink whisky.”

“Quite a few shops have closed in Hangzhou,” I said, asking about the overall state of the F&B scene.

“Same in Shanghai this year. Take Zhangyuan, which was super hot before. Now about two‑thirds of the tenants there are on the brink. It’s only when you pay rent that you see who’s swimming naked. Before the pandemic, plenty of people weren’t making money but could just about hang on. Once the pandemic hit, everything piled up and it was over. The biggest impact of the pandemic isn’t really the city’s basic operation—it’s that cities are no longer connected to one another.”

The fatal blow for bars in a tourist city? The tourists are gone.

“Take Hangzhou, for example. In previous years, these months shop owners never worried about business. Natural tourist volume alone could fill the place. Hangzhou gets at least 16 million visitors a year—they pull the whole economy along. But the scariest thing about the pandemic this year is that even now, it’s still locals doing the consuming. No matter if you say bars have recovered to 40 or 50 percent, it’ll never go past 60. Because anything above sixty percent comes from tourists; it has nothing to do with locals. Besides, Hangzhou has an oversupply of venues. In a tourist city, the number of shops always outstrips local spending power—it’s the natural order.”

Dudu says this year the priority is to steady himself, slowly recover. Recovery might still be hard next year, and next year probably won’t be a bullish one.

“The biggest hit this year was something fundamental we discovered while crunching numbers last month: any location that depends on tourists, like our Nanshan Road shop—normally there’d be crazy queues, as if you had to know the owner to get in. Even I didn’t want to go, because there were no familiar faces, just all tourists. Running a bar or a restaurant is the same: what you most hope to see in the shop are familiar guests; it feels warm, and you can check on how things are. But in previous years at this time, we didn’t want to go to the shops at all—all tourists, nobody we knew. I just needed to keep checking online, in the background, what they were complaining about, what service issues we had, what product problems we had. That was enough. But this year, I actually find myself thinking about marketing. That’s profoundly bleak.”

In the spring‑turned‑summer of 2020, when tourists should have been flooding in, Dudu went to the shop every single day, even if it meant just sitting there in an empty room.

Democratizing Whisky

Many people think bars enjoy sky‑high margins, but JOY Jiuyin doesn’t sell expensive. I asked, why not price higher?

“That’s impossible in China. When whisky culture first came to China, there were many misunderstandings. People thought whisky was all about good vintage and prestige.” Dudu says if whisky has an entry barrier, it’s particularly unfriendly to Chinese drinkers, because Chinese people almost always drink with a purpose—between men, between men and women, between women. Europeans, on the other hand, drink simply because they’re bored; it’s a social way to have fun. Dudu has a few Canadian friends who drink booze like water.

When it comes to favorite whiskies, Dudu once told me a story. He used to strongly dislike Taiwan’s Lin Yifeng, thinking he was too pretentious. But after all these years, he finally understood that “whisky is a journey through life.” At the very beginning, Dudu particularly loved Lagavulin 16 Year Old. Back then many fellow enthusiasts said the 12‑year was better. I couldn’t get it; from a traditional Chinese mindset, how could a younger age‑statement be superior to an older one? For the first six months of learning, Dudu still couldn’t accept it—partly because the Lagavulin 12 was higher proof, too fiery, and partly because he hadn’t yet grasped the depth of the finish. Another half‑year later, his palate adjusted to higher‑strength spirits. “Then I began to see: in terms of the front, middle, and back structure, the 12‑year is actually fuller than the 16‑year.”

“At the very start, I loved peated whisky. Maybe because I’m from Jinhua and my family makes ham—that smoky flavor has zero resistance for anyone raised on cured and preserved foods. The first time I tasted peat, I was ecstatic. So my gateway was Laphroaig 10 Year Old, then the 15, then I jumped straight to Lagavulin 16, and then tried everything from Islay. When Kilchoman first came out, I was thrilled. By the time I’d tasted Talisker 25, 30, and 35, I thought my pursuit of peat had reached a summit. I even thought my lifelong love for single malt would stay on that register.”

“Then a friend brought over a Macallan 30, the oldest blue‑label version. After that one glass, my whole world opened up. A whisky shouldn’t be confined by personal preference; tasting should be about structure, not flavor bias. From that moment, I suddenly stopped rejecting sherry‑cask whiskies and began trying things regardless of whether I thought I’d like them. The biggest mistake I made early on was using my own taste preferences to select what I’d accept right away. But the truly excellent whiskies are always behind that; you have to first observe structure before you can start learning.”

That’s how he began to grasp the idea of “a journey through life.” “It’s a very long process, as your understanding of society, values, and life starts to shift and deepens. Now, if you ask me what my favorite whisky is, I wouldn’t dare say.”

“Whisky’s strong‑spirit culture didn’t originate in the south; it was a sudden new force. Before, brandy and fine wine reigned—they dominated the mainstream market for years. Even now, whisky can’t really command high prices.” Dudu explains it from a technical angle: grain‑based spirits always appreciate less. Brandy and wine are fruit‑based; historically, aristocrats drank fruit‑fermented or fruit‑distilled spirits, commoners used grains and cereals to make strong liquor. From a lifestyle aesthetic, Europeans drink whisky to get properly drunk, while European nobles drink brandy to ease into sleep. Fruit spirits don’t hit as fast, they’re sweeter, lower in proof, less harsh—giving a strong sense of comfort. Very often, it’s not that your body can’t handle the alcohol, but that your mouth can’t take it.

“Whisky can never surpass brandy. High‑end cognac is extremely expensive—people just don’t know it. And the quantities are tiny. Aristocrats in Britain and France consume it. Their inheritance taxes are steep, so to offset them, they’ll buy a cask from the best distillery for their children. If the children really run short of money, they just sell the cask—it’s a way to dodge tax.”

“The commercial attribute of industry pricing can’t easily be changed over centuries. That’s why the Rothschilds, when they made wine, created so many classifications passed down through generations. Right from the start when we designed our product, we told customers we wanted fair prices.”

Dudu also advocates a relaxed bar atmosphere. “If you insist on the strict precision of Japanese whisky or the formula‑obsessed style of British whisky, it’s meaningless. Or if you insist on drinking whisky in a hyper‑ceremonial way, equally meaningless. When whisky culture first entered China, Chinese people opened bottles by the bottle—Europeans found it bizarre, thinking, what kind of fool opens a whole bottle in one night? In Europe, people drink five or six different glasses an evening. Europeans also like half‑and‑half—half stout. In China they add water, copying Japan. In Europe, drinking standing on the street is everywhere, something Chinese will never do. Standing means high table‑turnover, so you don’t even calculate marginal profit, you just calculate how many people you can fit standing. They even willingly stand on the street corner outside the door, and they’ve got the good habit of bringing the glass back when they’re done.”

Once a bar opens, the costs aren’t small. There’s an invisible tiger called: design and decor.

“If your bar has the same decor style from start to finish, it’s dead. If they’re all the same, why would a guest come to yours instead of another? This one’s European‑style, that one’s Japanese, another modern, another industrial.”

“We could streamline the entire supply chain, change the fit‑out standards—I could even create seven decor templates and standardize everything. But then we’d lose momentum. Imagine a typical restaurant: maybe one or two standardized templates are enough—one large, one small. Or if you want more variety, you adapt by city tier: how it goes in a first‑tier city, second‑tier, third‑tier—after all, China tops out at about sixth‑tier cities. So a restaurant can be done very neatly. Though margins aren’t as high as bars, the speed at which restaurants can scale is thrilling.”

Self‑Rescue During the Pandemic

Currently, Jiuyin’s food operations are closely partnering with Pelican.

Last year, Dudu pioneered a partnership between a liquor brand and a Western restaurant, creating a one‑stop dining‑and‑drinking night experience with an edge in delivery logistics. During the pandemic, he was practically ahead of the entire Hangzhou bar scene in taking a clear stance on whether cocktails could be delivered. “From the way we understand bars, we’ve always seen alcohol as non‑standard—it can’t run on a standard track, and people tend to blur lines across businesses. So the moment we started delivery, we were selling whole bottles of whisky, ice, and even recipes for simple cocktails. But definitely not pivoting to training, and not failed finished products ruined by transport time. We prepare everything and teach guests how to make it at home.”

To rescue themselves, they were also the earliest in the nightlife circle to make bar livestreaming a regular thing and offer proactive VIP service.

“Selling those bottles one by one, to our VIPs and others who needed them. At the very beginning it was tough and painful. We’d make a plan every two days, then maybe change it three days later. There truly wasn’t a good sales model, and the whole team was anxious. The boss was even more anxious, because the team was waiting for him to give the next step. But we had no way to simulate things in a normal fashion. Our so‑called sales logic basically meant watching competitors every day, watching the news every day, racking our brains over what to do. To the point where before every new plan came out, we had to work at extremely high speed—from designing the poster to preparing products to organizing everyone to sell.” In essence, it was about using change to seize opportunities, and also, sharpening the troops.

“Before, all the staff, because the brand was strong, felt safe and untouchable. The pandemic made them become more proactive and driven. And we also saw the partners who truly stood with the company in difficult times, willing to take pay cuts and face these problems together. At the same time, I received over a dozen resignation letters; some management left too. I understand that.”

Advice for Post‑90s Entrepreneurs

On starting up as a post‑90s, Dudu says he doesn’t quite dare to dish out a lot of advice.

He used to believe, and still does, the saying: past success is very likely the most important ingredient in your future failure.

He thinks if you want to get a foothold in the F&B industry, the most important thing is to adjust your mindset promptly; never be stubborn and assume those small wins from back then will keep you successful.

“Because I think this coming era, F&B included, is changing by the minute. From the post‑80s to post‑90s transition, and from post‑90s to post‑00s, we can’t use our own aesthetics, values, or fixed assumptions to judge the market.”

“When it comes to business, I think everyone should be crystal clear: about catering to the market—if you cater deeply enough, with enough sense of trend, and hit the right spots, business will take off. The so‑called insight is to go with the market tide. Years ago when we were doing this, we went against the tide, because the market wasn’t mature, so what we did looked very cool. But in this era of lightning‑fast information, I think more should be about deeply cultivating the relationship between market and customer. Do what people like, but without fawning. We still have to hold onto our core values—that’s for our brand and for our own heart.”

Dudu’s industry outlook is this: in the early years, the alcohol business was shrouded in mystery. Many elders even thought drinking in a bar was shameful or disreputable. The parents of his own staff didn’t understand their children’s bar careers, but after coming to Jiuyin, they became supportive. “The main reason margins on liquor were so high early on was precisely because drinking in a bar carried a strong sense of mystery.”

“But I think, amid the torrent of information, the alcohol business won’t retain that same mystique. In fact, why has the industry thrived in recent years? Precisely because those high prices created by mystery opened up lots of downward‑latitude space. And because China is a major drinking nation, with enough cultural and foundational depth, I’m still very optimistic about the future alcohol market. In the future, everyone competes on ability: the more you understand it, the better you can sell it. Over the years, something has struck me as quite magical. I used to tell people we have a large customer base, a wide reach. But the customers who really stick around see us as consultants. That consultant status comes from their first impression of our brand, their recognition of our products, and the trust built through repeated communication. Because when we sell wine, our conscience is clean; we stand on the customer’s side—what to drink for a business dinner, what pairs better with a meal. So I think in the future market, the days of cheating and hoodwinking are over. You need to patiently study every link and every category of alcohol, at least to organize a reasonable, healthy, and minimally flawed sales language. Only then can you survive in this trade.”

“On the road ahead, I think we must root out all traces of complacency and observe the development of the times and social needs with greater patience. I’m even starting to seriously consider whether certain types of bars could occasionally put out a dice cup.”

Dudu has also spent quite a bit of money attending F&B schools, like going to Hanyuan to study McDonald’s management model. “I often tell friends: if you go to learn, it’s definitely a good thing. But if you let yourself be led by the nose, your project won’t work. Success is not replicable. Go to these distilled experiences and just pick the tools you need—take whatever you’re lacking. I vividly remember one full‑day class at Hanyuan entirely about how to calculate marginal profit. I had something to do and left early. Someone at my table stayed through the entire evening, calculating until 1 a.m. He told me on the spot, ‘Marginal profit is a game‑changer.’ Then he went back to his business, implemented it for three months, and found it impossible to realize. That really struck me.” Success is practice, never just theory.

Before finishing this article, I went back to Jiuyin once more. The bar was buzzing again, back to its usual liveliness. I understand more and more why Dudu has come so far: after all these years, he remains vigilant, constantly embracing new rules of the game while respecting both new and old players—just as he did when he first entered the trade.

Every night that seems to arrive out of the blue is an experience destined in life. Winning or losing doesn’t matter; enjoying the process does. Only then do we have the heart to restart, again and again.

Hangzhou’s nightlife is once again as exquisite as before.

Your Favorite Bar Name 🤫

“God made water,

man made wine.”

Food Bless You!

Consultant, China International Gourmet Expo

Producer, The Table of Gods