According to a Post study, the number of qualified restaurants in Hong Kong has dropped for the first time in six years. Experts attribute this decline in popularity to locals moving to mainland China and tourists choosing lighter meals options like street snacks.
As of the end of April, 154 restaurant licenses were still in effect, a decrease of 255 from the same quarter last year, according to information from the Foods and Environmental Hygiene Department.
When comparing license numbers, it was discovered that 2, 034 restaurants closed in the previous year, whereas just 1, 779 were recently issued.
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The number of restaurant licenses will increase by an annual charge of 2 to 4 percent between 2019 and 2022, marking the first year-on-year decline since the pre-pandemic time. In the two years that followed, the growth slowed by about 1 %.
The craze started last July and continued for ten consecutive months with a year-on-year online decline.
Cathie Chung, senior director of research at JLL in Hong Kong,” We partially attribute this decline to the growing trend of Hong Kong residents to travel north, mainly Shenzhen.”
Local consumers are turning away from Hong Kong’s food and beverage scene because of its geographical closeness and more varied, affordable financial options in the local market.
Chung even noted that from 2018 to 2024, fast food restaurants and various eateries have increased in number of complete restaurant documents.
She attributed the shift to changing customer attitudes, especially among inbound customers who were increasingly seeking out light appetizers, chocolate, city snacks, and local culinary experiences.
According to statistics, the number of light refreshment restaurant licenses decreased by 0.4 % over the previous year, compared to a 1.8 % decline for general restaurant licenses during the same time period.
According to the study, Central-Western and Yau Tsim both lost 40 eateries in April compared to the same time last year.
The number of diner licenses in the city last year was online, but they are still higher than they were in the prior year, when only 15, 519 restaurants were licensed as of April 2019.
One of the eateries that survived the crisis was owned by Albert Wong, a 61-year-old restaurant who previously worked at Central’s bar and restaurant Sevva. He claimed that his daughter had persuaded him to start a home diner in 2021.
However, the entrepreneurial plan was severely hampered by another flood of Covid-19 outbreaks in early 2022, and the restaurant had to fail for a while because the village house’s first renovation fee was great.
” I was extremely let down at the beginning. It was very, very difficult to manage the restaurant for about three times, Wong said.
The restaurant, who once oversaw a group of kitchen staff, was now responsible for all costs, including taking a bus to the market to choose ingredients and looking for reduced prices before closing.
Wong urged using high-quality components and creative classic recipes, claiming this was the only way to make customers ‘ experiences memorable and have them share their experiences with people.
” I’m very pleased to hear that my clients said my meal tasted better than some of the stars, but they paid so much less,” he said.
The 28-seat cafe lately received more than 1, 000 telephone calls for reservations each day, forcing them to delay them for now because of attention from some YouTube programs.
When asked if the family’s company was worthwhile, Wong claimed that it had only just begun to grow and that everyone involved had worked extremely hard to this day.
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