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小王马Xiao Wang Ma

Shawarma, built properly, in Xi'an.

Middle-Eastern street food for China: a vertical grill, a 47/47 beef-and-lamb build and every sauce made in-house, starting in Xi'an.

Xiao Wang Ma film still Drag to turn
StatusConcept · not yet open
$57.8BChina fast food market, 2025Market Research Future
$128.9BChina fast food, 2035 forecastMarket Research Future
47/47beef and lamb, in equal measure

  • Each component has its own recipe, so the first hire can make it without the founders in the room.
  • A vertical grill, a 47/47 beef-and-lamb spec and every sauce made in-house. One kitchen in Xi'an first.
  • An ingredient build, not a concept board.

  • Built bottom up: baked durum bread, hummus, chilli oil, parsley, tomato, pickles, cabbage salad, sumac onion, shawarma meat, tahini, amba.
  • Beef and lamb 47/47, stacked on a vertical grill and shaved to order, as in the Levant.
  • The first kitchen is one street hatch: vertical grill, sauce station, bread oven, serving hatch and the 小王妈 sign.
Meat
Beef and lamb, 47/47
Components
11, all made in-house
Chinese name
小王妈
City
Xi'an, China
Eleven layers of a shawarma wrap floating apart in the dark: bread, hummus, chilli oil, parsley, tomato, pickles, salad, sumac onion, meat, tahini and amba

  • China fast food is a $57.8B market in 2025.
  • It is forecast to reach $128.9B by 2035.
  • Foreign food concepts in China live or die on a local operator.

Sources: Market Research Future

  • Launch market: Xi'an, China, from a single street hatch.
  • Three-way partnership: Philip Halloun, Maher Rohana and Haozi, the Chinese third of the team.
  • It needs a person living in Xi'an: a partner relocates, or a local operator is hired and trusted.

  • No Middle-Eastern chain operates at scale in China yet; the gap is the opportunity, and the warning.
  • Wagas: a foreign-founded chain that grew up in China.

  • Recipe guidebook: every sauce and pickle in quantities (amba, tahini, chilli oil, sumac onion, pickles, hummus). It makes a second kitchen possible.
  • Equipment list, itemised down to a named supplier for the shawarma grill, the one piece of kit the menu depends on.
  • Xi'an setup checklist: flight, apartment, WeChat Pay registration and the first menu, the path from plan to open hatch.
  • The work is real and reusable; the opening is not yet scheduled.
A small model of a street-food kitchen on a plinth: a hatch with a red awning, the 小王妈 sign, a vertical grill, a sauce station and a bread oven, with red lanterns lit at dusk

  • Someone on the ground: a partner relocates to Xi'an, or a trusted local operator runs the kitchen day to day.
  • The first kitchen: one site in Xi'an with the vertical grill, WeChat Pay and a short first menu from the guidebook.
  • The supply behind it: prove the unit, then a central sauce-and-spice supply lets more kitchens open.
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