Hongkonger fights to save 60-year-old grocery amid Kowloon City redevelopment

In a month’s time, 22-year-old Hongkonger Tony Lam Chun-ho will be graduating from Polytechnic University with a degree in business administration. But instead of following his peers into a professional career, he is choosing to fight for the legacy of his family’s six-decade-old grocery store.

Lam Kee Grocery Shop is one of only a handful of small businesses left in an area of the old Kowloon City neighbourhood facing imminent redevelopment, and the Gen Z Hongkonger is pulling out all the stops to keep the business alive.

“Lam Kee has been a part of my life from childhood to adulthood. If it suddenly disappears, I would feel remorse, so I want to keep it going,” he said.

“Also, Lam Kee has been in Kowloon City for over 60 years, existing in many neighbours’ memories. I believe if Lam Kee is gone someday, the neighbours will feel very sad.”

Lam Kee was started by Lam’s late grandfather as a modest street stall in the 1960s in the old Kowloon City neighbourhood, affectionately referred to as “Little Chiu Chow” and “Little Thailand” owing to its sizeable Teochew and Thai communities.

Having already been forced to move once due to redevelopment, the store reopened at its current premises on Nga Tsin Long Road in 2012.