{"id":22783,"date":"2025-12-25T00:56:39","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T16:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=22783"},"modified":"2025-12-25T00:56:39","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T16:56:39","slug":"2025-was-a-tough-year-for-hong-kongs-bar-industry-so-how-are-new-concepts-carving-a-path-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=22783","title":{"rendered":"2025 was a tough year for Hong Kong\u2019s bar industry, so how are new concepts carving a path forward?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Despite this being the year Hong Kong hosted its first edition of World\u2019s 50 Best Bars<\/span> (with Asia\u2019s 50 Best Bars held in nearby Macau), the scene as a whole suffers from headwinds stemming from declining interest in alcohol and dining out, combined with a significant price gap with the Greater Bay Area, to which tourists and weekend revellers are flocking, as the Post reported earlier this month.<\/div>\n

Bars and restaurants close every year, but 2025 saw the closure of extremely recognisable venues that have been serving the city for anywhere between half of to beyond a decade. Foxglove, which celebrated a decade this year, closed its doors last week. The Daily Tot shuttered just a few weeks before that, preceded by Stockton (est. 2014) earlier in the year. Last year, Dr Fern\u2019s Gin Parlour and Please Don\u2019t Tell were closed to make way for major renovations at The Landmark, Mandarin Oriental. The Envoy, The Pottinger\u2019s outdoor terrace bar, and its neighbouring speakeasy Room 309 also served their last drinks in 2024.<\/p>\n

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\"Foxglove<\/div>
Foxglove on Duddell Street, Hong Kong, closed last week after a decade. Photo: Christopher DeWolf<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI feel very sad that these bars closed down for good,\u201d says Jo Lo, co-founder of Bar Mind, a minimalist cocktail bar in SoHo. \u201cThese are the bars [that] really opened my eyes to Asian and Hong Kong bar culture.\u201d Before opening Bar Mind this year, Lo spent almost six years at Room 309 and The Envoy as part of Tastings Group. In 2022, she won Diageo World Class Hong Kong & Macau Bartender of the Year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year feels like a market correction,\u201d says Ming Cheung, co-founder of 001. \u201cRents have readjusted in some areas, but not enough. Consumer spending is more cautious. It\u2019s a perfect storm \u2013 pre-pandemic business models are colliding with post-pandemic economics and consumer behaviour. It\u2019s a cleansing, but a painful one for the culture.\u201d Originally founded near Gage Street Market in 2010, 001 closed in 2022 before finding a new home a year later<\/span> in Tai Kwun.<\/div>\n
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\u201cHidden bar\u201d Stockton, on Wyndham Street, closed in May after 12 years. Photo: Handout<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Opening a successful concept in Hong Kong requires a delicate confluence of factors. Rent and operational costs have to be kept as lean as possible. Lo observes that breaking even can take anywhere from six months to two years even with significant initial investment, cost control and effective marketing. John Nugent, founder of The Diplomat and co-founder of Sugar King<\/span>, emphasises the fundamentals of business planning \u2013 maintaining doomsday, middle-of-the-road and success scenarios; pivoting as needed; and knowing the product and clientele.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Despite this being the year Hong Kong hosted its first edition of World\u2019s 50 Best Bars (with Asia\u2019s 50 Best Bars held in nearby Macau),…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2917,14078,14123,3569,4787,5010,3486,1943,791],"class_list":["post-22783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-bar","tag-carving","tag-concepts","tag-hong","tag-industry","tag-kongs","tag-path","tag-tough","tag-year","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}