01

I still remember the first time I saw the scene outside Wenheyou’s entrance one evening.

Nearly 3,000 numbers glowed on the LED display by the door. The small entrance was packed with benches filled with people—especially young faces—occupied with their phones, glancing up anxiously now and then at the screen.

For those who observe business in Chengdu year-round, this isn’t an unfamiliar sight. In every district, even around major community hubs, you can find similar queues.

The difference is that in Chengdu, such lines usually belong to locals—old Chengdu residents who know every hidden gem and are willing to wait patiently for that subtle difference in flavor. Wenheyou is different. Most locals will tell you, **“Wenheyou isn’t that exceptionally delicious.”** Every snack inside can be found done better elsewhere.

If not for the food, what draws crowds day and night, rain or shine, compelling tourists to travel thousands of miles and wait hours just to step inside?

Because it’s not merely a restaurant.
**It’s a city memory presented through curation.
It’s a “magic market” built from 1980s–90s Changsha.
It’s an edible city IP museum.**


02

Key Words in Wenheyou’s Spatial Curation:

Create Contrast, Create Spectacle”

In traditional commercial contexts, these are terms from advertising and media: create contradictions, spark contrasts, let consumers form immediate recognition upon contact—occupying the mind, stirring curiosity, building memory.

Simply put, it’s about **“theming.”** Earlier, it was the shock tactics of UC’s editorial team; later, it was the lead of Mimeng in the social‑media era. In their playbook, if a headline doesn’t trigger a reflexive click, the content is essentially wasted.

For commercial real estate, the focus of creating contrast lies in space.

The first major spatial contrast at Wenheyou comes from its urban complex setting.

On one side of the Xiangjiang River stands a 300‑meter tower—Changsha’s Grand Hyatt Hotel, with its premium office space. On the city’s skyline, only the 400‑meter IFS tower rivals it. This is the undisputed pinnacle of the city.

Downstairs, Haixin Square presents a similar façade: a typical mid‑to‑high‑end mall, everything seemingly by‑the‑book—a classic urban complex.

And within it lies Wenheyou’s “magic market.” Enter through an inconspicuous doorway, and the scene shifts in an instant. From 2020 to the 1990s, it feels like stepping into a speakeasy: opening the hidden door of a neighborhood laundry to reveal an atmospheric underground bar. For first‑timers, the guide takes evident pride in revealing this new world.

Such a **scene‑crossing experience** is hard to find elsewhere in the country.

The second contrast comes from the multi‑dimensional, richly layered “magic market” itself.

Unless you’re from Chongqing, most of us accustomed to shopping malls will face a unique challenge inside Super Wenheyou: **“climbing the mountain.”**

The internal circulation isn’t planned horizontally but vertically. Across seven or eight floors, the market space offers not only dense shops and vibrant signage as visual stimuli, but also narrow stairways and even aerial cable cars that invite step‑by‑step exploration.

Every floor unveils a new scene—new content pulling you upward: bookstores, art galleries, vintage barbershops… No matter how many stairs, the sheer density of visual information makes you forget the climb. The traditional disadvantage of high‑rise shopping centers is turned into an advantage: sightlines are open yet layered. People watch each other across levels, full of life and bustle.

A **“time‑travel”** and a **“mountain climb.”**

Thus emerges the spatial curation of Super Wenheyou—a experience that’s exceptionally hard to replicate.



03

Key Words in Wenheyou’s Brand Format:  The “Showcase” of Street‑Food IP

With a spatial experience that’s hard to surpass, the remaining challenge lies in brand and format selection.

Wenheyou’s traditional strengths go without saying. Founders who started from street carts naturally possess deep understanding, operational experience, and resource networks for snacks like fried dishes, stinky tofu, and crayfish.

Yet when facing a 20,000‑square‑meter dining‑and‑amusement park, relying solely on your own snacks isn’t enough—you still need other snacks, because the setting is a “market,” and street‑food IPs naturally reinforce each other.

Thanks to Changsha’s food culture—like Chengdu’s or Guangzhou’s—there are plenty of delicious, unpretentious food IPs. They might seem out of place in polished, upscale malls, but **in Wenheyou, they fit perfectly.**

Thus, on Super Wenheyou’s bustling “Forever Street,” we see many classic Changsha street snacks. These IPs are not only authentic but also diverse and non‑repetitive. Even if you try them all, they don’t clash—just like strolling a naturally formed food street.

Yet all that feels effortless stems from deliberate design. Behind the “naturally formed” block is precise understanding of eating, drinking, and wandering behavior, and careful curation of target brands and categories.

Beyond street‑food IPs and restaurants, Super Wenheyou also intentionally meets Gen‑Z’s demand for content‑driven consumption.

Think of their favorite bars, bookstores, art spaces, small theaters… Wenheyou incorporates all these cultural formats, each imprinted with **deep local character**—old‑school touches that make every functional space uniquely Wenheyou, again hard to copy.

Moreover, these formats overlay “play” onto “eating and drinking,” effectively extending dwell time and consumption opportunities, bringing more traffic and exploratory fun.




04

Among all players attempting commercial‑real‑estate innovation, Wenheyou undoubtedly belongs to the most distinctive category.

They aren’t deep‑pocketed Hong Kong developers who can downshift and dominate with absolute advantages in international resources and high‑quality design‑operation capabilities—breaking conventions to pioneer new models, like Chengdu’s Taikoo Li, applauded for uplifting the city’s commercial charm.

Nor are they capital‑rich central enterprises that secure prime urban land at negligible cost, with ample room for experimentation.

Wenheyou is simply a group of Changsha businesspeople—a partnership of friends. They embody Hunan character: grounded, people‑oriented, and straightforward.

But they possess a differentiated edge the first two can’t match.

First, the team is **young enough**. It’s a group with an average age under 34, where late‑’80s and early‑’90s cohorts form the core. This means not only energy but also peer‑level aesthetic intuition—they “know how to have fun” and understand **“how young people play.”**

Second, they’re **tight‑knit enough**. Bonded by shared growth and coming from diverse fields—supply chain, spatial design, engineering, creativity, branding, leasing, operations—they break down silos across specialties. Every imaginable innovative idea gets support from the right professionals.

Invisibly, this builds end‑to‑end capability for commercial‑real‑estate projects, from positioning to execution. That’s why we see such high fidelity in Super Wenheyou—from concept to reality, it’s remarkably consistent.



05

I believe every city can have its own “Wenheyou.”

Because every city, however similar in some ways, holds its own unique commercial memories and distinctive street‑food IPs.

Especially in the 1980s–90s, before chain commerce swept everything, each city had its own soda factories, breweries, and vibrant small businesses started by laid‑off workers from state‑owned enterprises.

That era isn’t so distant—it still lives in many people’s hearts as childhood memory. For Gen‑Z, it’s like stepping into an old film, a completely new scene sparking strong curiosity.

But the hardest part is never ideas or resources—it’s team and shared vision.

For Wenheyou, the most precious asset isn’t “Super Wenheyou,” nor the crayfish or stinky tofu. It’s that **such a group of people exists—who believe, and are willing to make it happen.**

*Some images sourced from Super Wenheyou’s official website.*