Over a decade after it first brought eggs Benedict and churros with decadent hot chocolate to brunch-starved Bangkok, Asoke’s Chu will serve its last on Sunday.
That’s when the Asoke cafe said its remaining restaurant in Exchange Tower will shut following 14 months of uncertainty.
“For the past 14 months we have been holding our breath with one nostril barely above water hoping that the situation would improve or that the government and especially our landlords would finally be sympathetic to the impossible situation all of us are currently faced with in the f&b industry,” owner Toey Na Ranong wrote. “Sadly neither has happened.”
The outspoken chef and food writer has called out the government’s handling of the pandemic and lack of financial support for the F&B industry.
Toey also spoke out against hardball tactics of power-player landlords. He said the cafe received less than a 5% discount on its rent obligations during the past 14 months.
“We’ve paid roughly THB6million in rent since the pandemic hit and we lost 40,000 customers last year,” Toey said.
“[Now] the building owners won’t even take a meeting with us,” he added. “The entire year we only spoke to middle management who are just ‘doing their jobs’ and ‘can’t make decisions.’ This week I requested a meeting with the boss and when the time came he didn’t show up.”
Chu at the Exchange Tower branch will seat limited dine-in patrons through Sunday. Its A second branch of the cafe in Sathorn’s Trinity Complex closed in December 2019, leaving what had been the original location.
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