Ask AI · How can Zhao Qian turn the Bull Pen Coffee shop into a breakout hit with annual revenue in the millions?

“At our worst, we couldn’t even sell a cup of coffee a day.”

By | “China Entrepreneurs” reporter Zhang Wenjing

Edited by | Mina

Hero image source | Interviewee

The “90s-born” Zhao Qian’s village-coffee start-up myth is passed around in a small town in southern Anhui—Jing County, in Ningxian County.

A restaurant owner in Qianxi Town, Jing County, Anhui, said that in one year’s “May Day” holiday, Zhao Qian’s coffee shop generated 200k yuan in revenue in three days. A guesthouse owner said Zhao Qian’s coffee shop boosted his guesthouse. Another village-coffee shop owner mentioned Zhao Qian’s coffee shop with no small amount of envy, saying, “Their myth is something others can hardly replicate.”

In October 2023, Zhao Qian—who left her government position—and her husband Lin Kai turned a long-abandoned bull pen in Qianxi Township, 50 kilometers from her hometown in Yunling Township, Jing County, into a coffee shop called “The Universe Is a Grain Store.” A year later, this village café—under 30 square meters, with an investment of less than 100k yuan—reached annual sales of 900k yuan; in 2025, it generated 1.4 million yuan in revenue.

Source: Interviewee

Within less than two years after “The Universe Is a Grain Store” opened, Zhao Qian and her husband’s coffee shops—“Kong Kong Li” and “Ran Jiang Shan”—as well as the bakery “Universe Bread” opened one after another nearby and became popular. In January 2026, they left Jing County and moved into Huangshan, with the fifth shop officially opening in Bishan Village, Yixian County.

At the coffee shop “Kong Kong Li · Cliffside Art Space” in Jing County, Zhao Qian shares her experience turning a bull pen of less than 30 square meters into a coffee shop with annual business revenue over one million yuan, as well as the core logic of running a village café and her thoughts about its future.

The following is Zhao Qian’s oral account (with edits):

Turning a Bull Pen into a Village Café

“ The Universe Is a Grain Store” was built by renovating a bull pen; it was the starting point of our village-café business.

In September 2023, I quit my government job. At that time, I didn’t yet have the idea of starting a business. But my husband had always been starting businesses. Back then, village cafés had already started to become popular in Zhejiang, but this kind of business format hadn’t appeared in Anhui’s southern region. He thought it could be combined with local characteristics to do village cafés.

In mid-September that year, we drove past Qianxi Township in Jing County. We saw a patch of golden rice, and a small house floated in the rice waves like a little boat—it was especially beautiful. We immediately decided to rent the place and do a paddy-field coffee concept.

The small house was a bull pen built by local villagers and had been abandoned for many years. We rented it all at once for ten years, paying 2,000 yuan per year. On top of that, with 60k yuan for renovation costs and 20k yuan for coffee equipment, the total investment was under 100k yuan. A month later, our rural coffee shop started “sloppily” operating. I named it “The Universe Is a Grain Store,” meaning that stars are like grains of rice, and the universe is a grain store.

Source: Interviewee

The coffee shop is located along the “Jiangnan Sichuan-Tibet Highway.” This is the “Jiangnan Sky Road,” poetic and picturesque. During peak season each year, many self-driving travelers come here to tour. That guarantees customer foot traffic. But at the time, I hadn’t thought about all that yet. Back then, I had no commercial mindset at all. The only idea was that it sounded fun—opening a coffee shop in the mountains felt really cool.

At first, I wasn’t involved in the day-to-day affairs of the coffee shop. The shop was run by my husband and Xiao Chen (our first staff member). On October 13, 2023, I posted a photo-and-video clip with a bit of self-mockery: “Help! What kind of people open a coffee shop in a village?” It unexpectedly went viral, reaching tens of millions of views. This taught me that you can obtain traffic through the internet.

After that, every day I stayed in the shop, recording the café and the staff’s daily life with a camera and words. At the beginning, most people were questioning and making fun of us. Some said the location choice was shocking. Others joked with me, telling me to turn the coffee shop into a gym, to open a golf course, to open a Pop Mart—while there were many who believed I was doing hype, grabbing attention—“doing anything to get traffic.” They thought nobody would really leave a perfectly good civil servant job and go sell coffee in the countryside.

But I’m the kind of person who says, “The more people make fun of me, the more I want to do it.” I held my breath and insisted on updating every day—I had to do this well. Later, I don’t know when exactly, but the tone in the comment section slowly changed into something like: “You’re very creative; you’re bold; you have the courage to open a shop in the countryside”…

When we first opened, we couldn’t sell more than a few cups of coffee each day. We ordered a batch of cups, and we couldn’t even use them up for months. Back then, everyone had no idea, and nobody in the village drank coffee. That was also the poorest time of my life. For half a year, I had almost no consumption; I threw myself into running the small shop. I live in the county town of Jing County. I commute for 40 minutes every day. I arrive at the shop at 9 a.m., and at 10 p.m. I’m still editing videos. After opening the coffee shop, my working hours stretched to more than ten hours every day. Since we opened the coffee shop, whenever I make any purchase, I’ve gotten into the habit of converting it into coffee costs. I don’t even dare to spend an extra yuan.

But we had a great mindset because the start-up capital was small, and we didn’t have big expectations for it—so we weren’t too anxious. Even though we can’t sell a few cups of coffee offline, we do self-media and short videos. The online traffic is still okay—we gain one or two hundred followers a day. After a live stream, there are also one or two hundred people in the room, sometimes even one or two thousand. These positive responses gave us the motivation to keep going.

During the 2024 Spring Festival, we truly welcomed our first wave of high traffic. The coffee shop was crowded with people. After that, visitors came to drink coffee and take photos in waves. We didn’t have time to prepare. Every day we went into the county town to borrow coffee shops—borrowing anything we could: cups, lids, coffee beans, even grilled sausages… So, in the third month after opening, we started making a profit. Then, very soon, we entered the peak travel season, and things became unstoppable.

In the first year, this rural coffee shop—under 30 square meters—reached 900k yuan in revenue. The highest number of cups sold in a single day was 800, and the highest daily revenue could reach more than 20k yuan. In 2025, revenue reached 1.4 million yuan.

To run a village café, you have to last through the hard times

Every time I do a livestream, many people ask me: “How’s it going to work to open a village café in this place? How about that place?” And also: “If I graduate from college and don’t want to find a job, I want to open a village café at home.” I usually advise against it. A village café is absolutely not that simple. You have to attract tourists from across the country, but how many village cafés can actually stand in front of national tourists?

A rural coffee shop isn’t something ordinary people can do. It tests your endurance and requires you to be able to withstand loneliness. We poured all our effort into it—almost working with our hearts and souls—only then did we shape “The Universe Is a Grain Store” into what it looks like today.

I often say: if you don’t have that kind of strong mental stamina, I wouldn’t recommend doing a village café. The most needed thing for running a village café is perseverance. Even when you’re exhausted and collapse every night, you still have to create a vlog of decent quality. You have to keep adjusting your products and services. And you have to face online insults and doubts…

Opening a shop in the countryside may seem leisurely and fun—when you’re free, you fuss with flowers and plants, daydream, read books, as if it were the most ideal life on earth. But the truth is: since we opened the coffee shop, I no longer have a “life.” From morning to night, I’m soaked in the shop. I once said this in a video: I look at the clouds outside the small shop. Sometimes the clouds are close to me, and sometimes far away—because when I’m watching the clouds, I’m always thinking: When will the next customer come?

Source: Interviewee

Running a village café is especially hard during the off-season, and many village cafés fail in the off-season. Usually after holidays end, the village enters a period of weakness, which is a very draining stage: the shop’s expenses are greater than its income, there are more employees than customers, and the maintenance costs for a small shop are also high. At our worst, we couldn’t even sell a cup of coffee a day.

In the off-season, you have to hold on. How do you make it through? Keep a good mindset; stretch your time horizon and look at it over the long run. This comes from your judgment about the future. You can’t guarantee whether people will come to your coffee shop in the future, so why do I insist on doing self-media? Many people question me for being so high-profile, but if you don’t promote, who will know your village café? Do a good job of drawing in traffic and delivering service during the peak season. Do a good job with off-season development planning and income expansion—then the lifecycle of a village café may become longer and more sustainable.

I’ve been doing self-media for nearly three years. Traffic anxiety is unavoidable, but that’s normal. Traffic is always cyclical—sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s worse, and that’s all normal. If you get trapped by traffic, you’ll never be able to bring out your next breakout product. So I generally don’t care about the feedback traffic gives me. I only care about my creative drive—whether I have something valuable that I can express.

Village cafés don’t just sell coffee

We were the earliest in southern Anhui to do village cafés. In the first year and more after “The Universe Is a Grain Store” opened, more than 60 village cafés opened around us. Now there are nearly 100 village cafés in Jing County.

But not every village café succeeds. I’ve seen many village cafés have foot traffic when they first open, but once the initial wave passes, it disappears. When we were building “The Universe Is a Grain Store,” I realized: today, when you start a business, no matter what you do, you can’t be away from the internet.

We do the internet and offline at the same time—only then can you get good results. Through the internet, I share and put out viewpoints, and I record moods and daily life. At the same time, we also have physical stores. Combining the two is very robust, with strong vitality.

Now our IP—me included, and also the IP of the staff at the shop—has formed and gotten out there. When it comes to village cafés, there are plenty of attractive “cool places” to hook people, but there are basically no village cafés that can truly build the IP into something that spreads widely.

The most core point in running a village café, I believe, is having a sense of human warmth. We describe a way of living—a life that everyone idealizes—relaxed, simple, down-to-earth, and even a bit humorous and witty.

“The Universe Is a Grain Store” is very free, carrying the scent of soil. I often say, “In my shop, as long as the customers don’t make demands that are especially unreasonable, I basically will meet them.” Some customers steam big hairy crabs at the shop every Mid-Autumn Festival. Some customers camp overnight in the shop. And some customers even take the store’s keys and make coffee themselves. As long as you come to the shop, whether you drink coffee or not, we will provide the best service.

“Grain store” is a projection of my personal character and my ideals. We share the same mental qualities: sincere, inclusive, and very down-to-earth. I run this coffee shop with care and sincerity.

There’s a blackboard in the shop. Typically, blackboards at coffee shops are used for advertisements, but I use it to write copy. There’s “Let streams and mountains keep you company; let clouds and moon be your match; enjoy calm leisure; enjoy freedom; enjoy leisurely pleasure,” “Just go through whatever comes, no one can stand in the way of the path; be people with souls; be open and proud,” and “The green mountains don’t speak; even after half a lifetime wandering and lurching, your bones remain proud…” This has become a distinctive feature of our shop—and many other shops have copied it.

Not only “The Universe Is a Grain Store.” On the interior walls, glass doors, and mirrors of the “Kong Kong Li” and “Universe Bread” shops, there are lots of pieces of copy too. Do you know why? Many people come to the shop to take photos and post them, but they don’t know what caption to use. I thought: if I help them come up with the captions, they can just use them directly.

Photography: Zhang Wenjing

From when customers enter the shop to when they leave, I’ve thought through every process and detail: taking photos and posting them, drinking delicious coffee, the copy that they’ll want to share—right down to which spots in the shop will “come out well” in photos. I figured those out in advance too.

The shop employee Xiao Chen, honest and straightforward, doesn’t talk much. He just focuses on making coffee, which can easily make customers have a bad experience. So I made him a little “Xiao Chen User Manual,” planning and writing down the whole set of interaction flows—from greeting customers when they enter, to taking orders when it’s time, all the way to the complete “sock social” interaction process at the end. I wrote it down and gave it to Xiao Chen to use. Now, many people go to coffee shops just to have an interaction with Xiao Chen.

Before, Xiao Chen’s family used to do a sock business—there were lots of socks. He isn’t good at speaking, but if he really likes you, he’ll give you a pair of socks. I jokingly call this “sock social.” In the coffee shop, after customers buy coffee, Xiao Chen also gives them socks. Xiao Chen’s “sock social” produced an unexpected effect. Many people interacted with us, holding the socks and taking photos together.

I require that the staff must build a connection with customers—for example, telling them what’s fun nearby, or chatting about other topics. In short, they must proactively interact and communicate with tourists so that a deeper connection is formed—then the repurchase rate will be much higher.

We also often visit other village café shops, and I noticed a big shortcoming in many village cafés: investors only care about investing and hire a staff member to come work in the store. They think that a village café is simply opening a shop and selling a couple cups of coffee, and that the staff never interacts or builds a connection with customers. That’s a common problem among many village cafés.

Building the modern version of “A Love for Martial Arts”

I’m the type who likes to summarize at each stage. Once the village cafés have been open for two or three years, I start thinking about how to jump to a new stage: how these few shops should move forward next.

When 2025 was nearing its end, we started considering our development plans for 2026. We also realized that constantly opening new shops probably doesn’t have much significance and may not create much value either. We need to find a commercial breakthrough.

At that time, I was really torn. I was thinking: do we need to implement unified, corporate-style management, or do we continue with this kind of small-shop model while keeping a management style with human warmth? Is our next step to open more shops, or should we do something else?

I met many investors and wanted some guidance. Some advised me to publish a book and build my personal IP. Some suggested that I replicate hundreds or even thousands of stores across the country. Others told me to teach courses and sell training. I don’t really agree. I feel that people really can’t earn money beyond their own understanding. I can’t earn that money, and I don’t want to.

Actually, I think the difference between our village cafés and other coffee shops is that we’re truly practicing a philosophy of mine—not purely just for opening shops, and not only for making money.

“The Universe Is a Grain Store” is truly valuable because of culture, not because of the product. I removed the fake parts of the package that I don’t like, and kept the sincere things I like. By sharing life through livestreams and short videos, and conveying the way people interact with each other, I pass on these beautiful values.

Source: Interviewee

Actually, what we’re building is a modern version of “A Love for Martial Arts,” and in an ideal small space, everyone has their own role. It’s full of stories—for example, people often arrive carrying suitcases, stay in our shop for a few days, get healing here, and combine it with their own stories. That’s a really good script.

I’ve always had the idea of finding people to film our story. It could be called “Grain Store Diary” or “Bull Pen Stories.” If we can film it, culture and IP will be created, and then “The Universe Is a Grain Store” will have an even longer-lasting life.

I believe village cafés still have vitality. We need to make plans for the long term. What I want to build is a truly deep, heart-gripping cultural brand. That’s a big challenge for me—it’s not just a matter of a few small shops.

Right now, we have an idea: to excavate the local culture of southern Anhui and string together the entire southern Anhui route. I plan to open two or three more shops in 2026, string it into a route, build a culture and tourism platform, and then connect with hotels, scenic spots, and so on.

We call this route “The Universe Journey.” It covers eating, drinking, traveling, buying, and learning/insight—this isn’t just a simple tourism route. It will let everyone who practices “The Universe Journey” fully appreciate the mountains and waters of southern Anhui, feel the culture of southern Anhui, and experience the journey of personal life. We will turn “The Universe Journey” into a trip that you must come for at least once in your lifetime.