330,000 Visits in Four Days: Taizhou’s First Premium Gourmet Week Go Viral

“So, did you make it to Xinhai Tiandi in Taizhou’s commercial core this May Day?”  

“Checked into a Black Pearl restaurant yet?”  

“Tried Qiao Bo’s pork ribs? The stall that sold 200,000 yuan worth in a single day!”  

This May-Day holiday, the Shanhaitiandi precinct in Taizhou’s core commercial belt was turned up to full boil. Foodies of every stripe converged on the zone to trade bites and share plate-side stories.

Today (4 May), the curtain fell on the city’s first Premium Food Week—the four-day spin-off of the 2024 Black Pearl Restaurant Guide Insight Summit.

Crowds came in droves and tills kept ringing: roughly 330,000 visitors poured through the gates, generating about 6.82 million yuan in on-site spending.

Follow us for a quick rewind of how Taizhou’s debut Food Week captured both the stomachs and the hearts of holiday-makers.

Led by Black Pearl restaurants,

Taizhou specialties rolled out the red carpet for taste buds from every compass point.

The gourmet fair gathered the city’s dining A-listers and carved the grounds into eight themed blocks, each stall cherry-picked for star power. Black-pearl headline acts—Hong 0871 Premium Yunnan Cuisine (Shanghai North Bund Branch), Kelong No. 1 (Tengda Centre Branch), and Laobian Restaurant—stood shoulder-to-shoulder with twelve star-hotels (Hilton Yuntaige Chinese Restaurant, Taizhou Yaoda International, Kaiyuan Hotel, Xiangyi Hotel, Seafood Restaurant of Yiding Hotel, Fangyuan Hotel (Taizhou), Fangyuan International Hotel, Yuanzhou Hotel Group, Crowne Plaza Luqiao, Xinyexuan Chinese Restaurant of Luqiao Xindu International Hotel, Taizhou Swans Hotel, and Wenling International Hotel).

Thirteen boutique kitchens—Pujianghui of Shunji, Longyan New-Taizhou Cuisine, Kelong Seafood City, Wenhua Fishing Village, Liang Xiaoyu, Jipin, Shibu Tang Taoxi, Mancang Yujia, Tan Chi Yu Ren, KFC, Ancient Street First, Pengji, and Xihui Teahouse—added spice, while snack icons Qiaobo, Aide, and Hongji dished out grab-and-go bites. Night-market grills, craft brews, intangible-heritage stalls, and live pop-up shows kept the lanes humming, and chefs fired woks on the spot, plating colour, aroma, and flavour for an all-you-can-explore feast.

Nearly 1,000 seats and round-the-clock cleaning kept visitors comfortable throughout the event.

Organizers set up dedicated rest zones with close to 1,000 seats where guests could relax and enjoy their food. “Wait—this is a food fair? It’s cleaner than most malls!” one visitor laughed. Despite shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, the square stayed trash-free thanks to a -person SWAT team of cleaners who circled non-stop from dawn to well past midnight, mopping, wiping and hauling until 2 a.m.

Meticulous planning and dedicated patrols: over 1,500 parking lots opened free of charge

In the run-up to the event, organizers worked closely with traffic police to draw up a detailed security plan tailored to the festival’s scale, visitor and vehicle numbers, and the characteristics of surrounding roads. Staff were posted in parking, dining and sightseeing zones for round-the-clock monitoring, ensuring the week ran safely and smoothly. To make travel easier, more than 1,500 underground spaces at Shanhai Tiandi were opened free of charge; real-time updates on remaining spots were released throughout the festival to guide traffic flow.

Word-of-mouth blew up and repeat visits followed: the flavours won stomachs and selfies in equal measure.  

“This is food-fest GOAT level—look at that line for Laobian!”

“Never been to a cleaner, classier fair,” visitors posted on WeChat, Xiaohongshu, and TikTok.  

Squads grew by the bite: a ten-strong Hangzhou group confessed they kept coming back for “just one more.”  

“I’m on round four,” laughed local Mr. Xie. “Day 1: Qiaobo ribs and Yunnan grilled tofu; Day 2: pork rice plus snacks; yesterday: giant wok crays; today I’m stocking up on more ribs for the family.”  

High-speed-rail foodies from Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanchang, and beyond stepped off the train and straight into the queue. “Tasty, spotless and buzzing—worth the trip,” said Ms. Gao, who rode down from Hangzhou after seeing the buzz online.

All-out promo, coupon turbo-charge: buzz translated into queues.

From 17 April the local Wangchao app teamed up with local news agencies such as Taizhou culture & tourism, Taizhou Daily, Jiaojiang Posts, Qingjiao App, as well as six out-of-town portals (Home in Hangzhou APP, In Ningbo APP, Read Jiaxing APP, Sout Taihu APP, Source News APP, and In Nanjing APP) plus radio, TikTok, WeChat Channels and Moments, racking up 3.5 million online impressions.  

After kick-off on 1 May, nine joint live-streams on Wangchao APP and the official Taizhou tourism TK channel pulled 250,000 real-time viewers.City- and district-level tourism boards sweetened the pot with RMB 100,000 e-vouchers and RMB 50,000 paper coupons, keeping wallets open and lines long.

Translator：JingJing Shi