The 59-year-old Jia Guolong is also the “age to break through.”

The day after it was rumored that Xibei was “completely bankrupt”, brand founder Jia Guolong, who had not been seen for a long time, spoke out again, imploring regulatory authorities to further clarify the boundaries of speech for high-traffic online accounts and distinguish between normal public opinion supervision, debate of opinions, and malicious disparagement, commercial slander, and soft online violence.

Beijing News Shell Finance reporter based on public reports and incomplete statistics of narrow-door restaurant data found that Jia Guolong has operated at least 20 brands. Currently, only 8 brands are still in existence, and 5 of them only have 1 operating store.

Fast food has always been Jia Guolong’s favorite entrepreneurial direction. From 2016 to 2020, Jia Guolong intensively launched 8 brands in five years, including Xibei Oatmeal Noodles, Maixiangcun, Super Roujiamo, Xibei EXPRESS, etc. Most of them are fast food restaurants and have all withdrawn from the market.

Jia Guolong explained in an interview in 2021 that the reason why he repeatedly tried fast food was because “McDonald’s-style restaurants” are easier to achieve large-scale expansion. He hopes to make the business bigger through product standardization and store replication.

This pursuit of scale is also reflected in Xibei’s business strategy. In 2024, Jia Guolong proposed to expand the number of Xibei stores to more than 400.

The crisis of prepared dishes has not changed even after a year, and behind it is Xibei’s dilemma. Narrow-door restaurant data shows that as of September 2026, the number of Xibei’s operating stores has dropped to 226, 150 less than the 376 stores in 2024. In the first nine months of 2026, Xibei opened only one new store.

This time, Jia Guolong, who was “unwilling to admit defeat,” once again bet on fast food. In February this year, Xibei launched a new brand “Tianbian Claypot Braised Noodles” and took over some of its original stores and employees. Data from Zhaimen Dinyan shows that as of September 10, there were approximately 30 Tianbian Casserole Noodles stores in operation.