Victim of Voraciousness

Another Hong Kong institution has become a victim of inordinate greed.

The 60-year-old Lok Heung Yuen Coffee Shop in Central was forced to close its doors after the landlord jacked up the rent 282 per cent.

Yes, you read that right: 282 per cent. From HK$128,000 per month to HK$360,000. You have to sell a heck of a lot of pineapple buns and coffee to meet that burden, let alone pay your staff and make a profit.

And so the family-run shop, nicknamed "Snake Home" by the regulars, has shut down, and the owner is now searching for a new location in which to transplant the business, decor and all.

The family-run restaurant got its nickname from its popularity among office workers, who like to take a break during office hours - or "eat snake" in local vernacular - at the restaurant with a snack and a chat.

"My hands are tired after collecting so much money," owner Kwong Yut-sing, the father of Kwong Kui-wing, said. "But even with the amount of business we're doing today, we won't be able to pay the new rent."

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"A lot of us will wait for the reopening and not seek new jobs," said Kwong Kui-wing, out of breath from bellowing orders to the kitchen staff.

Sixty-year-old Tommy Lo Cheuk-fong has been a regular since 1961 and calls himself a "gold medal customer". Now head of a tailor shop on the same street, Mr Lo said he had been a fan of Lok Heung Yuen's pineapple buns, pies and coffee since he was a teenage apprentice.

"I come here at least twice every day, but mainly for breakfast. I've been drinking their coffee for 47 years. The coffee you get elsewhere just doesn't measure up," he said.

Eating his last lunch at the location was "slightly depressing".

Lawyer Paul Tang Chi-keung, a fan of the shop's pineapple buns for more than 10 years, said he was drawn to the shop's nonchalant ambience.

"No one here cares who you are and what social status you have. To them, you are just another regular customer," he said.

While the bustling shop was often noisy, visiting Lok Heung Yuen gave him peace of mind, he said. "There's nothing you can do about it closing. I will miss it for sure."

Kwong Yut-sing said such overwhelming support had given him cause for celebration.

"I am happy to see so many fans come back," he said, adding that some had come all the way from Macao for a last meal.

"We will burn fireworks tonight and I have called some regular customers for a round of late-night beer after we close."

In its place will probably go yet another 7-11 or skin-whitening shop, because as everyone knows Hong Kong has so few.

It's sad and ultimately unnecessary, but that's life in the Big Lychee: out with the old and in with the new.

If you were to look up rapacious in the dictionary, you'd see a photograph of a typical Hong Kong landlord.

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