Interesting story of one guy's story of running a noodle shop in Shanghai.
It was started in December 2017 and closed in March 2020.

It's located at a pretty good spot. Right across from Shanghai Art Theater and with a lot office buildings around. People familiar with Shanghai should know this area well.

The shop usually is packed. Also well reviewed on Dianping.

Some of the noodles it's selling. The one on the left, Noodle with Four Toppings. It was sold at ￥20 in 2017 and ￥22 in 2019.

He was making decent profit in 2018 and suffered loss in 2019.

He was getting 3500 orders a month on delivery services but didn't make a penny. The 20-25% cut by delivery service platforms are too much.

Reason why he suffered loss in 2019. All those office buildings became empty. The pandemic of course was the last straw.

He even got the daily lunch catering business to 7 Agricultural bank branches nearby. Didn't help much.

Also he discussed how he insisted using real beaf while many others use fake beaf.

The material raw cost of the Noodle with Four Toppings was ￥12. Once you factor in rent/labor/depreciation etc. The owner didn't make much selling it at￥22.