Huge queue of customers waits to buy the results of Tai Cheong's last 14-hour baking marathon
Customers wanting a last taste of the Tai Cheong Bakery's famed wares crammed Lyndhurst Terrace in Central yesterday, the final day of operations at the site the bakery has occupied for more than half a century.
Queuing for up to an hour, they bought thousands of egg tarts, doughnuts and other products before the shop closed at 8.55pm after a 14-hour baking marathon.
The operators had opened at 7.30am and vowed to stay open until they ran out of ingredients.
The doughnuts sold out first, about 5pm, and just before 7pm only 25 trays of egg tarts - proclaimed the world's best by former governor Chris Patten - remained.
Owner Au Yeung Tin-yun had predicted earlier he would sell about 2,000 tarts. By 8pm he had lost count, but said sales were up about 50 per cent. The shop usually sells 1,300 to 1,500 a day.
The bakery, which has been forced out by a steep rent increase, from $38,000 to $80,000 a month, plans to open at another location yet to be chosen.
