This National Day Holiday, ‘The Fireworks Shops’ Hit the Jackpot

During the National Day Holiday, Restaurant Crowds Went Wild.During this National Day holiday, restaurants were almost overwhelmed with crowds. According to the data released by Gaode’s Street Sweep Rankings: On October 1st, the number of orders in the catering industry grew by 150% year-on-year. Among them, “small stores” experienced the highest increase in customer flow, reaching 300%. Over the entire 8-day holiday, Gaode drove over 100 million customers to offline restaurants. People went out for travel or to visit relatives, and inevitably, they all ended up at the same destination—dinner tables. Those once-hidden “fireworks” shops tucked away in alleys became the biggest winners of the holiday.One such example is “Yuexiang Xiaochu” in Beihai, Guangxi. On September 29th, Gaode’s Street Sweep Rankings published a list of the Top 100 restaurants nationwide, and this seafood restaurant unexpectedly took the crown. The owner exclaimed, “I never expected this!” This restaurant has been open for nine years, run by a couple, with business typically supported by loyal local customers. But now, thanks to the rankings, it’s been “discovered” by tourists nationwide. Yuexiang Xiaochu scored 4.9 stars on Gaode Street Sweep, with over 15,000 people adding it to their favorites. It received over 800 reviews generated through navigation and on-site evaluations. Similar stories are unfolding across the country.

The catering industry has been caught in a cycle of competition for too long. Delicious restaurants aren’t always easy to find. However, this holiday, a list generated by 800 million people “voting with their feet” has brought foot traffic back to the real world.The Catering Industry: Trapped in the Traffic Loop.This summer, the variety show “One Meal to Fame” exploded in popularity. After the show ended, the featured restaurants went viral overnight: long queues for reservations, booming takeout orders, and media coverage of store visits—suddenly, traffic shifted massively toward offline businesses. This is because the consumer’s craving for good food remains unchanged across time. Despite the rise of short videos, live streaming, and various marketing strategies, “delicious” food is still the most valuable currency. Whether a dish can truly move people is still judged by the tongue and stomach.The variety show provided chefs with an influx of traffic, but it also reminded us that the food industry is often ensnared in a traffic trap. For the thousands of small restaurants closer to the average consumer, there is a lack of proactive search entry points, so they rely heavily on ads, short videos, and influencers to maintain visibility. As a result, “spending money to buy traffic and fight for recommended positions” became the main theme, while the actual skill and craft of cooking took a backseat.

This has led to more obvious pain points: firstly, if merchants don’t invest in ads or videos, it’s hard to get noticed by users. Algorithms rank based on exposure, with stores getting more exposure being recommended more, while those with less exposure gradually fade away. Essentially, businesses are “buying ad space” from the platform—there’s no real connection between people and content, and consumers only see “hotness” curated by algorithms.Secondly, traffic is not a necessity, leading to a mismatch between online traffic and offline demand. Online merchants can “buy traffic,” but offline customers can only be “seen by traffic.” Yet catering is an offline business: success lies in “customer visits” and “repeat purchases.” But algorithms provide clicks and exposure, not guaranteed conversions. Many restaurants experience traffic surges with low conversion rates; many ad investments only bring in a few customers. This uncertainty makes businesses anxious—they don’t know how much of their money will come back.Finally, there’s the dilution of word-of-mouth. The more marketing is focused on promotion, short video packaging, and restaurant filming for social media, the more likely it is to weaken the product’s long-term competitive edge. Over time, customers remember “who has good packaging,” but forget “who has the best flavor.”

So, once the hype fades, businesses are exposed to intense competition at the bottom of the market.Reintroducing Real Customer Traffic.”Restaurants are businesses for the taste buds.” In an age of over-marketing, this statement seems like a luxury. Moreover, with increased competition in marketing, ad costs, optimization costs, and influencer collaboration costs continue to rise. With all profits squeezed to the limit, small businesses already have thin margins. In this cycle of traffic, many good restaurants are stifled in their desire to be seen. Restaurants that truly have flavor and sincerity need more than just focus; they also need a budget. However, restaurants with a budget don’t always have the time to continue focusing on cooking.Gaode’s Street Sweep Rankings took actual customer behavior into account, letting those previously forgotten small restaurants be seen again. Consumers follow the crowd because the navigation app shows “there are indeed people going there,” and businesses get recommended because they’ve earned real attention. This logic breaks the marketing loop and gives small businesses a chance to return to authenticity.Gaode’s Street Sweep Rankings: Connecting Data with Real-Life Consumption.The eight-day National Day and Mid-Autumn holiday saw Gaode’s Street Sweep Rankings produce an impressive “customer flow report.”

Official data shows that Gaode’s Street Sweep Rankings, which launched just 23 days ago, has already surpassed 400 million users—nearly half of Gaode Map’s monthly active users. On the first day of the holiday (October 1st), Gaode Map’s daily active user count set a new record of 360 million. Over the 8-day holiday, Gaode brought over 100 million visitors to offline restaurants. This phenomenon of “crowds coming without spending money on promotions” was almost unimaginable in the past.In Hangzhou, a small restaurant called Zhang Gong Guan·Authentic Tonglu Cuisine saw a massive influx of customers. The owner, Zhang Yunfeng, has been running this restaurant for 27 years, serving dishes made with fresh fish, traditional farm tofu, and exclusive homemade sauces. Due to his dedication to craftsmanship, his “Grilled Fish Head” has sold over 3 million portions, becoming a staple in Hangzhou’s food scene. After the release of the Gaode Street Sweep Rankings, Zhang Gong Guan climbed to the top of the “Champion List.” That day, Zhang Yunfeng put on his chef’s coat and went back to the stove himself, personally preparing fish heads for loyal customers. “As soon as the rankings came out, many new customers came, many of them navigated here specifically. On a good day, we could have an extra ten to twenty tables.”In Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, Dongbei Kaixin Restaurant became the “queue king” during the holiday. This northeastern restaurant has been in business for 20 years, relying on word-of-mouth and repeat customers.

After being featured on Gaode’s Street Sweep Rankings, the owner, Kaixiang Rong, even hired a lion dance team to celebrate and personally hung the ranking sign in the restaurant’s most prominent position. “This wasn’t an award, it was given by our customers who navigated here and voted for us,” he said. Now, about 30% of customers each day come specifically due to the rankings.Gaode’s Impact: Bringing Local Food to the Forefront.Gaode’s Street Sweep Rankings not only promoted individual restaurants but also boosted entire commercial districts and neighborhoods. During the holiday, many tourists opened Gaode Map and, instead of just navigating to tourist attractions, followed the recommendations to enjoy food, drinks, and entertainment from popular shopping districts and trendy areas all the way to local hidden gems. The boundary between tourism and food consumption became blurred, with navigation software now serving as the new entry point for discovering local gems. This full activation of offline business and the release of consumption vitality is a clear sign of a strong post-pandemic recovery. Thanks to Gaode, small businesses were able to enjoy both foot traffic and positive reviews—truly “winning without trying.”Bringing Data Back to the Real World.The popularity of Gaode’s Street Sweep Rankings is based on a simple truth: “Where there is foot traffic, there is vitality.”

Gaode uses big data to calculate the number of customers visiting, repeat purchase rates, cross-region visits, and geographical reach, among other metrics. Together, these numbers form a restaurant’s “popularity profile.” This mechanism brings the rankings back to the level of facts. The ranking of each store is the result of many real footsteps.This system adds warmth to the data. On social platforms, traffic is often determined by topics, packaging, and algorithms. But in the world of maps, traffic comes from the pulse of the city. The migration of people, the flow of roads, and the popularity of tourist spots and commercial districts form a more realistic indicator system. Consumer choices are digitized, and the efforts of small businesses are visualized. The ranking is like a mirror, reflecting the “taste center” of a city.For businesses, this logic provides a new sense of certainty. Traditional platforms prioritize ads, with higher budgets leading to better rankings. Gaode’s system avoids this cycle—there is no bidding for positions, and no need for marketing packaging. Gaode uses real customer flow as a signal, allowing genuine attention to be the best recommendation. The platform also lowers entry barriers for small businesses: In September, Gaode waived the first-year fee for new restaurant members, and two weeks after the announcement, over 150,000 businesses applied to join. Before the holiday, Gaode quickly launched the feature to allow businesses to capitalize on the traffic surge. At the same time, the platform directed.