I would never call us a restaurant,' says Elliot Luckly, the manager of Happy Valley pub The Jockey. 'We're midway between a restaurant and a home - there's none of the formality behind a restaurant and none of the legwork [that comes] from cooking at home.'
Luckly says a 'proper pub' should offer a solid menu, unlike certain alcohol-only watering holes. At The Jockey, food sales account for as much as 30 per cent of the total revenue.
At The Chapel, where food makes up 40 per cent of proceeds, owner Surjit Mahal says some of his regulars dine there so often they leave their house keys at the bar in case they get locked out. 'It's a bit like the TV show, Cheers, where everybody knows your name. This year alone, I'm attending three customers' weddings, and 90 per cent of the people that walk through the door are regulars. Not only do our customers know us, they also know one another,' he says. 'In fact, a lot of news headlines were broken in this very room by journalist customers.'
While other dining establishments are going belly up in these tough times, pubs are bucking the trend. Mahal has seen little impact on business over recent months, and says daily turnover did not dip even during the Sars crisis in 2003. 'Here in Hong Kong, the pub is not something residents are ready to sacrifice. We all live in tiny apartments - the pub is our communal space,' he says.
'The Hong Kong pub market is rather resilient,' says Luckly. His pub's outdoor seating area doubles as a children's playground on weekends. 'The parents guzzle a pint and eat; the kids play. There's no stigma behind bringing kids to a pub - it's the way it's always been in countryside pubs in the UK.'
The Jockey menu includes the usual pub-grub suspects: steak and Guinness pie, bangers and mash and beer-battered fish and chips. Flavourful and satisfying without putting too much of a dent in the wallet, they are perfect comfort food.
