{"id":10866,"date":"2025-08-20T05:24:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T05:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/10866\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T05:24:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T05:24:09","slug":"is-there-any-way-back-for-hong-kongs-crisis-hit-restaurant-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/10866\/","title":{"rendered":"Is there any way back for Hong Kong\u2019s crisis-hit restaurant sector?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Hong Kong\u2019s restaurant sector is in crisis, with a wave of closures, shrinking margins and residents lured by cheaper options locally and across the border. In the first of a two-part series, the Post looks at the industry\u2019s troubles and whether it can reinvent itself.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Hong Kong\u2019s Metropol Restaurant has been bustling like the good old days in recent weeks as diners seek a last taste of favourites such as \u201char gow\u201d and \u201csiu mai\u201d before its dim sum trolleys trundle away and it closes for good in September.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Among them on a recent weekday at the 35-year-old Chinese restaurant was white-collar worker Christina Wong, 50, a regular when she was a teenager.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Wong went for a \u201cfarewell lunch\u201d with her husband Jonny Au but found that her fond memories of the restaurant in the Admiralty neighbourhood and reality did not match.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The couple spent more than HK$450 on tea and food \u2013 \u201cmore expensive than expected\u201d \u2013 with the bill including a 10 per cent service charge, a mandatory HK$20 per person fee for tea and a small dessert that cost nearly HK$50.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cFor the same price, we could have had two meals in Shenzhen. I didn\u2019t even feel full this time, as many items were already not available [at about 2.30pm],\u201d Au said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Metropol Restaurant in Hong Kong is bowing out after 35 years. Photo: Jelly Tse\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/d9b123a1-f6ed-4b2e-9610-4ea23b7e0333_94b7c517.jpg\" title=\"Metropol Restaurant in Hong Kong is bowing out after 35 years. Photo: Jelly Tse\"\/>Metropol Restaurant in Hong Kong is bowing out after 35 years. Photo: Jelly Tse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hong Kong\u2019s restaurant sector is in crisis, with a wave of closures, shrinking margins and residents lured by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[10528,10524,79,10530,10525,179,18,10529,10532,4202,10533,19,17,10521,10527,10531,10526,10522,1999,10523],"class_list":{"0":"post-10866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-admiralty","9":"tag-baptist-university","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-cantonese-restaurants","12":"tag-chief-executive-john-lee-ka-chiu","13":"tag-economy","14":"tag-eire","15":"tag-food-and-environmental-hygiene-department","16":"tag-german-restaurant-in-nam-cheong","17":"tag-hong-kong","18":"tag-hong-kong-university-of-science-and-technology","19":"tag-ie","20":"tag-ireland","21":"tag-kau-kee","22":"tag-lh-group","23":"tag-metropol-restaurant","24":"tag-ocean-empire-food-shop","25":"tag-shenzhen","26":"tag-singapore","27":"tag-taipan-bread-cakes"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}