Editor's note: CGTN presents "New Trends," which provides you new trends among Chinese people and tells you reasons behind them. In this part of the series, CGTN takes a look at Chinese youths' favoring elderly-exclusive community canteens as their dinner choice.

"It really helps," said Guo Zhiliang, who is in his 30s and ready to have lunch at a community canteen after packaging recycling goods he collected from residents at a neighborhood in Chaoyang District, Beijing.

Guo found the community canteen named Runlao Canteen by chance when he was looking for a convenience store to buy bottled water. "The dinner room is clean, the price is affordable and the staff are nice," Guo said while remembering his first experience at the canteen.

Complaining that takeaway food is often oily and spicy, Guo did not hide his love for Runlao Canteen. "Buying a meat dish, a vegetarian dish and rice altogether can only cost me 13 yuan (around $1.8). It's a quality and inexpensive dinner for me."

The community canteen is usually a government-subsidized canteen that aims to bring affordability and convenience to senior citizens in urban neighborhoods and villages around China.

But the community canteens in urban neighborhoods have seen more and more young diners. Ji Heng is another frequenter at the Runlao Canteen.

Holding a two-year-old boy in his arms, Ji said his family and him have gone to the canteen for breakfast several times. "It's convenient to have breakfast here as it's close to our home and we don't need to wait for takeaways, let alone the wallet-friendly price."

What's more, the community canteens, especially those in first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai, have been all over social media.

On China's lifestyle-sharing social media platform Xiaohongshu, there are many young people sharing their dining experience at community canteens and under some posts there are other users who could not stop their admiring for the dishes or asking where the canteens are or whether their neighborhoods have the same kind of canteens.

As for why the originally elderly-exclusive community canteens have become popular among young Chinese in big cities, Jin Tianlin, a researcher at the Academy of Macroeconomic Research, said long commutes and the uneven quality of takeaway food are among the reasons.

"Long commutes in big cities means less time for rest, so cooking by young people themselves has become time inefficient and economically undesirable," Jin said, adding that "meanwhile, the inconsistent quality and delivery time have eroded the takeaway's advantages of being cheap, fast and tasty."

Instead, the community canteens, mostly located in neighborhoods and featuring light and affordable dishes, not only fill the young people's hungry stomachs, but also helps them be free from the fatigue of cleaning the kitchen, Jin said. "So it's favored by more and more young people."

While some young Chinese can't wait to dine at the community canteens, some are concerned about taking up places intended for the elderly.

At the Chengxiangshili Community Canteen in Chaoyang District in Beijing, a staff worker surnamed Yan said most elderly people come to buy food around 10:30 a.m., and near 12 p.m., most of the dinners are young people who work nearby.

Remembering when the canteen opened in 2019, Yan said she and other colleagues found sales could be a problem as most of the consumers are elderly people, who sometimes do not come to buy food. "And if we reduce costs, the food sometimes will not taste as good and there will be no way to do more meat dishes," said Yan.

As for Yan, the canteen can improve with more young people coming to eat here. "With the participation of young eaters, we do not need to worry about too many leftovers and we also can cook more diversified meals than just for the elderly," Yan said.

What Yan said echoes what the operator of Runlao Canteen, which was opened nearly four months ago, has to say. He hopes more young people living or working near the canteen come to eat there and to help it develop.

Though the community canteens mostly a public welfare product, Lou Wei, a researcher at department of Resources and Environmental Economics, Research Institute for Eco-Civilization with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that community canteens cannot only rely on government subsidies. Lou said the not-for-profit and convenient community canteens are a supplement to standard for-profit restaurants.

"While exploring the corresponding policy support, the community canteens should also focus on socialized operation," Lou added.

"With more and more young diners, the canteen will have better profits, which encourages our staff. Nowadays, we have more confidence in keeping the canteen open for a long time. Only in this way, we can provide quality dining services for the elderly for a longer time," Yan said.

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