Bengong's Tea 本宫的茶

The brief

Bengong's Tea — known to Sydney's Chinese-Australian community as 本宫的茶 — opened its first Sydney location in 2018. Eight years later, the network is seven stores deep, spanning six distinct concept formats from Burwood's Tea & Bakery flagship to Westfield Chatswood's Wonderland to Cabramatta's Tea Lab to Darling Square's late-night Black.

What started as one premium tea concept in 2018 has become a multi-format brand operating a central production kitchen at 8-10 Fox Street, Holroyd — supplying every venue with celebration cakes, seasonal items and signature beverages.

The brand is now ready to open territory to franchise partners. ABC Franchise is the recruitment partner.

Why the multi-format approach matters

Most bubble tea brands run one template store and drop it anywhere they can sign a lease. The result: a Westfield kiosk, a quiet suburban high street, a late-night Chinatown corner, and a corporate breakfast catchment all running identical menus and identical fit-outs. None of those locations are optimal for the same operating model.

Bengong's took a different path. Six concept formats, each tuned to a venue type:

• Tea & Bakery — the flagship format. 60–100 sqm, full bakery cabinet, celebration-cake category. Right for high-street family catchments like Burwood and Rhodes.
• Wonderland — Westfield-style mall format. Photo-friendly visual identity, family demographic, peak weekend trading. Right for Chatswood.
• Tea Lab — destination format. Higher menu complexity, "specialty" positioning for tea-savvy catchments. Right for Cabramatta.
• Go — express format. 20-sqm mall kiosk, beverage-focused, fast service. Right for Liverpool.
• Black — late-night format. Trading until 10pm, drinks-led, urban catchment. Right for Darling Square.
• Aqua — corporate format. Early-morning coffee parity, professional crowd. Right for St Leonards.

This is the moat. Bubble tea is commoditised; format-tuned premium tea + bakery isn't. A franchisee buying into Bengong's doesn't pick a template — they get matched to one.

What ABC is delivering

• Recruitment funnel design for NSW and interstate expansion — the qualifying questions for format-specific operators differ (Tea & Bakery requires bakery experience; Go can take a first-time operator)
• Code-side documentation — Bengong's first Disclosure Document and Franchise Agreement, drafted to current Code with format-specific clauses
• Site-fit assessment — eight years of Sydney trading data tells us which catchments work for which format; we translate that into a site-selection rubric for new territories
• Franchisee-side briefing — investors need to understand which format they're buying into, what its margin profile looks like, and which questions to ask
• NSW + interstate expansion sequencing — where to plant the first 5 franchisee stores, and in what order

Where the engagement sits today

Seven owned stores trading at established run-rate. First franchisee inquiries being qualified. Active opportunities for:

• NSW outer suburbs (Penrith, Parramatta, Hurstville, Bondi Junction)
• NSW regional (Newcastle, Wollongong, Central Coast)
• VIC entry (Melbourne CBD, Box Hill, Glen Waverley)
• QLD entry (Brisbane CBD, Gold Coast, Sunnybank)

Multi-store packages available for operators committing to 3+ venues in a territory.

What this case study illustrates

Three things, in order of weight:

Format-tuned scaling beats template scaling. The brands that survive year 5 in the Asian-Australian F&B space are the ones that adapt the venue to the catchment, not the other way around. Bengong's spent eight years building this discipline. A franchisee inherits it.

Central production is the moat. One bakery kitchen feeding seven venues means consistency, cost control, and recipe protection that no single-site franchisee could replicate alone. The Holroyd facility is the asset.

Owned-stores-first, recruitment-second. Bengong's didn't open recruitment until seven owned venues were proving the model across six formats. Every recruitment conversation now starts with seven real trading data points, not seven projections.

If your brand has similar maturity

Tea, coffee, dessert, casual F&B brands with 5+ owned stores are the right shape for the franchise transition we run. Start a conversation.