'Making profit is a side product'

Customers queue in front of the fourth N.F.T restaurant on its opening day, April 11, 2015, in downtown Beijing. [Photo/Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Among a generation growing up in the Internet era, he realized his goal by mobilizing the web. Before starting business, Zhang and his partners worked hard to promote their products and brand on their personal accounts of the country's most popular social media such as instant messaging platform QQ, Sina Weibo, China's version of Twitter and messaging app WeChat.

In the third month after his restaurant opened，the number of followers on the three social media outlets has reached nearly 10,000.

The continuous growth of fans and curious people visiting F.N.T restaurant exceeded the capacity of the 30-square-meter space, secluded at the end of a lone aisle in the underground of an office building.

"Nearly half of F.N.T's visitors come through the Internet," said Zhang. By comparison, most traditional restaurants rely heavily on a superior location to bring natural customer flow.

"The starting point of my business is selling rice noodles, and the end is brand. Customers make a connection with us when they buy the first bowl of rice noodles," Zhang said with his index finger tapping the edge of the table to emphasize his point.

In the process of running F.N.T, Zhang has organized an association "Ba Man Club"， membership of which comes from his staff and customers, who are mainly Hunan locals born after 1985 and work in Beijing. "Ba Man" is Hunan dialect meaning "stubborn" and "hardworking".

Being of a similar age, with a home province in common and social communication makes the association strong and active enough to hold activities most weekends, even if it has expanded to become a community of nearly 100,000 today, 10 times the number of his followers a year ago.