（By Cai Mingye）
Many merchants complain the high rent since Hong Kong is expensive on land and crowd, plus with dull market currently. High rent is burden of restaurant whose profit is small and need large site. As Hong Kong in free property market these years, the business of retail market is good, with more ground shops selling jewelry, cloth and makeup instead of foods. Some restaurants closed down while some got lucky to maintain on upstair.
Recently, property consultancy Cushman & Wakefield investigated 326 shopping locations in 62 countries and found the rent in Russell Street Causeway Bay which is HKD 1,709.5 per sq ft ranking the first of the world, above former top Manhattan of New York. Restaurants in Causeway Bay suffer the most because of this. For example, two star restaurants in Lockhart Road Causeway Bay which were Lee Yuen Congee Noodles in history of 42 years and Ah Yat Abalone Forum Restaurant since 1983 both are not there now. Lee Yuen Congee Noodles among closed because the rent rose from HKD 0.3 million to HKD 0.6 million while Ah Yat Abalone Forum Restaurant moved to Sino Plaza days before.
Plutocratic restaurants also need to move.
Yang Guanyi, the boss of Forum Restaurant pointed " The former location in many layers was doubly marked up to HKD 1.35 million and the air condition was broken; While the new one only has one layer and is larger about 2,000 sq ft with good air condition and reasonable price. ". In addition, the equity dispute of another plutocratic restaurant Fook Lam Moon just solved, one of its owner Xu Weijun will open a high class Cantonese cuisine restaurant named " New Fook" in same district, but he have to choose the 3rd-5th floor of Kwan Chart Tower in Tonnochy Road as the location because there is no suitable ground shop.
Even Mak Kee in Causeway Bay can't bear it.
There were many ground restaurants in Russell Street ten years ago like Chee Kee, Hui Lau Shan, KFC and so on, but all moved away. Currently, only Mcdonald's left whose lease will expire at the end of this year, while the owner EMPEROR IHL intends to largely increased rent by 67% to monthly HKD 1.5 million. It means they need to sell 99 sets in value of HKD 21 at least to support the rent.
Ground shops in Tsim Sha Tsui and Mong Kok turn to shopping mall.
In Kowloon, the competition of restaurants still fierce, with Tsim Sha Tsui and Mong Kok suffered the most. The head shop of tim ho wan the dim sum specialists in Kwong Wa Street Mong Kok and underground shop The Sweet Dynasty in Canton Road Tsim Sha Tsui neither afford to high rent. Take tim ho wan as example, the boss Mai Guipei change the location to shopping mall after giving up the ground shop, and will firstly enter Tsueng Kwan to open branch in The Edge before the end of this year, after setting two branches in Olympian City and ifc in Hong Kong Central District.
Mai Guifang believed, large owner in shopping mall supply long term and favorable rent, no worrying of mark up in two or three years; second is it still reasonable under stable business environment even they need to share the profit. Besides, shopping mall has steady people flow and the promotion there may help their business. He said "shopping mall will be the major choice for locations of tim ho wan, especially along the railway. "
