Boiled beff noodles gave He Wei a delectable idea.
A decade ago the businessman, based in China's wealthy coastal province of Jiangsu,
started a small restaurant selling them.
Now he has a chain of 100 such outlets.
But life is getting less palatable for millions of small eateries and cafés across China.
Not only is consumer spending sluggish,
but the tech platforms that operate China's food-delivery services are battling over prices,
often dropping the cost of products to next to nothing and forcing merchants such as Mr He to cover the bill.
Welcome to the front line of the "delivery wars".
It all began in February when JD.com, one of China's biggest e-commerce groups,
announced that it would enter the market for food delivery.
This posed an immediate threat to Meituan, a super app and leader in the field, and to Alibaba,
an e-commerce giant that runs its own food-delivery service called Ele.me.
Since then, the three have scrapped for market share in a business
which had a staggering 1.6trn yuan ($223bn) in deliveries last year.
By lowering prices across the country,
expanding the types of deliverable items and shortening delivery times,
each combatant hopes to keep customers scrolling exclusively on their apps.
Alibaba has attacked JD by offering "instant purchases" of goods such as electronics,
which it promises to get to customers in under an hour.