Hong Kong nightlife districts Wan Chai and Lan Kwai Fong struggling to survive after year of turmoil
- The devastating impact of the coronavirus on bars has added to already tough times that have seen tourists, sports fans and even US sailors stay away
- Landlords in Wan Chai seem far more flexible when it comes to rent reductions than those in Lan Kwai Fong
Neil Drummond stands at the door of Coyote Bar & Grill in Wan Chai and peers into the street. Tonight, he’s as likely to see tumbleweed pass by as a prospective customer.
This is the reality for Hong Kong’s historic bar strip on Lockhart Road – which started life as a red-light district in the 1950s – after the double blow of the year-long anti-government protests and the more recent Covid-19 epidemic. In Wan Chai and Hong Kong’s other traditional nightlife hub, Lan Kwai Fong, the past 12 months have been a tale of empty bars and huge losses in earnings.
Drummond, senior operations manager of Coyote’s, has never seen anything like it. As if the civil unrest and coronavirus emergency weren’t bad enough, there is another reason why business is so poor for him: the US-China trade war.
“Our biggest loss financially has been the US Navy not coming to town. Generally, they’d be here every month,” Drummond says. “The size of the ships would vary, but when an aircraft carrier came to town there would be 7,000 navy personnel in Wan Chai for four days and many of them would come to Coyote.”
US Navy personnel would go to the bar, put on one of the freely available sombreros, have a fishbowl – a huge glass of margarita priced at HK$488 (US$63) and advertised as “margaritas to share or dive into solo” – and dig into a variety of burritos, tacos and quesadillas.
