A man couriering food to officegoers during lunch time. Such scenes have become a regular occurrence since the government imposed restrictions on restaurant dining to contain the spread of COVID-19. (CALVIN NG / CHINA DAILY)
One of the few sectors to have benefited from the pandemic is the meals delivery business. While it’s been boom time for app-based multinational supply chains like Deliveroo and Foodpanda, who managed to grow their Hong Kong business several-fold over the last seven months, the errands man from the noodle shop round the corner has been kept busy as well.
Going out for a meal has long since been endemic to Hong Kong culture. People in this city typically work long hours, sometimes at more than one job, and therefore many of them simply have no time to shop for groceries or cook. A little more than a year ago, when Hong Kong was a calmer place, eateries of every possible dimension seemed to be thriving. People waiting in never-ending queues to get inside a restaurant was probably the most common, and happy, image one saw inside a shopping mall on weekends.
Hong Kong’s restaurant density is among the highest in the world. Then the months-long civil unrest on its streets followed by the outbreak of the novel coronavirus earlier this year forced people to start eating at home and the eateries unable to sustain the losses started closing down by a few hundred every month.
Tucking into lunch on a desolate bench at Tamar Park. (CALVIN NG / CHINA DAILY)
A new set of government restrictions on dine-in service in restaurants came into effect last week, in the wake of a spike in locally transmitted COVID-19 infections in Hong Kong. Now it’s back to not-more-than-four patrons to a table, and a blanket ban on dine-in service after 6 pm.
These days we are more likely to see food being taken outside of restaurant spaces than consumed in them, as a result. The sights of delivery men struggling to keep their balance as they try to cart ridiculous volumes of Styrofoam-packed food and beverages in plastic bags pinned to their bikes, or people looking for a less-crowded spot in a park or under an escalator to tuck into a quick lunch, as they say, are part of the new normal.
Until Hong Kong shows significant improvement in containing the virus, takeout seems the flavor of the season.
A taxi driver prefers to eat inside his vehicle. (EDMOND TANG / CHINA DAILY)
Cycling down a deserted street in Central, carrying meals made to order. (PARKER ZHENG / CHINA DAILY)
Having a quick snack in a public garden in Tsim Sha Tsui. (RAYMOND CHAN / CHINA DAILY)
A woman surveys ready-made takeout meals in a restaurant in Tseung Kwan O. (CALVIN NG / CHINA DAILY)
Eating in a quiet nook under an escalator in a shopping mall. (CALVIN NG / CHINA DAILY)
