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SEOUL / BANGALORE / KUALA LUMPUR / HONG KONG / BEIJING – Once a central part of Itaewon’s thriving nightlife in central Seoul with lines of up to 1.5 hours, the Mexican-Korean restaurant bar Vatos Urban Tacos has been hit over and over by the coronavirus outbreak that has kept people away since February.
A group of Itaewon clubs in May turned the area into a ghost town. All 2,154 clubs in the city were ordered closed and only allowed to reopen with restrictions at the end of June.
Just as customers were beginning to return in July, when local infection numbers dropped to single digits, Vatos took the final blow: a 9 p.m. dining restriction imposed last Sunday (Aug. 30) to combat a surge. sudden cases.
South Korea reported 21,010 cases as of Saturday (September 5). About a quarter is August alone.
“It seems that Covid-19 is a great bully that knocks you down and won’t let you get up,” lamented Vatos co-founder Juweon Kim.
To minimize costs, it had to cut 60 to 70 percent of its staff and cut operating hours.
“A lot of restaurants closed, but we forced ourselves to stay open. It’s like a form of marketing, saying that Vatos is always open, at least on delivery,” Kim told The Straits Times.
He added that door-to-door sales rose 20 to 30 percent, but it wasn’t enough to offset the 85 to 90 percent drop in food revenue, half of which came from the bar.
Kim said the pandemic caused them to take a hard look at their business model and find new revenue channels, such as making Vatos-branded home-cooked meal kits to sell online or in markets and convenience stores.
“Covid-19 is a game changer, the new norm,” he said.
But there are also “opportunities in the confusion,” he added, noting that they were able to secure a prime location in dazzling Gangnam for their fourth branch.
Itaewon is not the only one injured.
Nightlife hubs in Asia came under attack when the pandemic spiraled out of control after being first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan last December.
Globally, there are more than 26 million cases and more than 878,000 deaths. India is the most affected country in Asia and the third most affected globally, after the United States and Brazil, with 4.03 million cases and more than 69,000 deaths, according to the data collection site Worldometer.
BANGALORE: NOW ALLOWED TO BUY BEERS
Bangalore, the city of bars in India, has seen nightlife die out since March, when the government imposed a nationwide lockdown.
Business collapsed and many of the 1,330 bars had to close.
Some nimbly changed their ways of working to survive, staying open with fewer staff, negotiating lower rents, and changing menus. The 57 microbreweries in the city lobbied the local government to allow take-out food, once banned due to complex laws.
“With take out dinners and beers, we can stay afloat,” said Sibi Venkataraju, co-founder of Toit, Bangalore’s oldest microbrewery.
Once a vibrant pub with no room to stand on Saturdays, Toit has had just a quarter of its regulars in the past six months.
The Indian government has allowed bars to serve alcohol since Sept. 1, but bar owners say the older group, who generally drink more, are still reluctant to go out.
“A younger crowd is coming in than usual. They get some food and a couple of non-alcoholic cocktails and sit for two to three hours,” Mr. Venkataraju said.
“The closure has made people really want to spend time with friends, I guess.”
KUALA LUMPUR: FOCUS ON THE SALE OF FOOD, ALCOHOL
The numbers are also alarming in the Malaysian nightlife scene.
Nearly one in five entertainment venues have closed and nearly 50 percent of workers lost their jobs after the government imposed a shutdown in March to curb the spread of the virus. Malaysia has reported 9,391 cases and 128 deaths.
Most sectors of the economy reopened in June, but only clubs, pubs, and bars serving food alongside alcohol were able to resume operations until midnight. About half of the 6,600 nightspots across the country only serve alcohol.
Cher Ng, CEO of Trec, which is home to clubs like Zouk KL and Iron Fairies, said they are focused on serving food and alcohol to weather the Covid-19 storm.
“We can’t do live DJs or bands, nor can we play loud music because we are operating under the guise of a restaurant bar,” he said. “This has caused our revenues to plummet about 75 percent.”
As a landlord, Trec is also helping tenants by offering discounted rent and free parking. “We are also assisting some tenants with license applications to convert their current spaces into a restaurant, bar or cafe,” said Mr. Ng.
HONG KONG: ROLLING WITH THE PUNCHES
In Hong Kong, food and beverage players have quickly adapted to withstand the blows.
When the government ordered bars and pubs to close again in mid-July when the third wave hit, rock and roll bar co-owner Beckaly Franks and her team quickly brought in a coffee machine and came up with snack ideas in order Transform The Pontiac, a popular 700-square-foot watering hole in Central, into a coffee shop, in less than 48 hours.
Dinner services in restaurants were allowed at that time only between 5 am and 6 pm.
“So we close the doors (like a pub) and open at 11 in the morning and, you know, we host that coffee party during the day until 6 in the afternoon,” he said.
Dinner hours have been extended to 10 p.m. beginning Sept. 4, as the third wave of the pandemic subsides.
Bars, pubs and nightclubs were forced to close for the first time in late March through April during the second wave of the pandemic. Back-up demand soared when they reopened in early May, giving these establishments a much-needed lifeline.
Hong Kong has so far recorded more than 4,800 confirmed cases, including more than 90 deaths.
BEIJING: THE CRAZY NIGHTS COME TO LIFE
In Beijing, the nightlife industry is slowly coming to life after being hit by a combination of the pandemic and the closure of a popular nightclub area.
Sanlitun, a popular nightlife destination, was hit especially hard. After it was allowed to reopen in May, it was forced to close again during the second wave.
While there have been no hard figures, industry players said an estimated 30 to 50 percent of bars have closed due to the pandemic.
Gastrobar owner Joe Hou, whose clientele was mostly expats, had to try to attract new local customers by expanding the menu to include items like rice dishes.
“We had to cut our floor staff, so now I work at the bar, while my wife is the waitress. If not, there simply would be no way we could survive,” he said.
China has reported 90,507 coronavirus cases and 4,735 deaths.
With the situation gradually improving (Beijing hasn’t seen any new cases in almost a month), partygoers are starting to reappear.
At the One Third club, the only indication of an ongoing pandemic were the masks that hung from the elbows of patrons who danced the night away.
“It’s been almost nine months since my friends and I had a night like that because before we were all worried,” said Shelly Feng, a 25-year-old who works in finance.
“Now that everything is starting to look better, we are making up for lost time,” he laughed.
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