Hong Kong’s Hung Wan Cafe closes down for good on Christmas Day

A decades-old Hong Kong cha chaan teng featured in a Stephen Chow Sing-chi movie shut down on Christmas Day due to sluggish business in recent years, with its owner telling the Post it was the “right time to call it an end”.

At around 6pm on Wednesday, staff members of Hung Wan Cafe in Mong Kok pulled down its metal shutters for the final time and bade farewell to its last group of customers.

The owner, surnamed Ma, stayed with a dozen family members to take photos and videos inside the cafe, before finally leaving the place where he had worked for decades at 7.30pm.

“I am very tired and I feel it is the right time to call it an end,” the 70-year-old, who declined to reveal his full name, said.

He planned to travel to Guilin, a mainland Chinese city famous for the views of karst peaks, for several days to celebrate his retirement.

Carlos Sun, a 33-year-old photographer who started documenting old cafes in the city since the Covid-19 pandemic, on Wednesday paid his last visit to the cafe, where he had lunch every time he passed through the area.