Xiang E Qing, a chain of high-end restaurants in Beijing, was known as the “first restaurant stock.” In March 2013 it announced that, in response to the Party’s Eight-point Regulation, its restaurants would leave the upper market for ordinary dining. They would charge no minimum spend and no service fee. A report that month said that since the new rules, turnover at Beijing’s high-end restaurants had fallen 35 percent.
The company changed its name to Zhongke Yunwang. In December 2014 the securities regulator opened an investigation into its chairman, Meng Kai. A 2015 report said that the “first restaurant stock” had been stuck in the mud since 2013.