Diner’s Diary | Lucy’s restaurant in Stanley to close this summer after 23 years as a Hong Kong South Side fixture
Rising competition, declining sales, and difficulties hiring staff have hit one of the first Western restaurants to open in Stanley, says manager, and now owner Lucy Humbert is leaving Hong Kong
An institution on Hong Kong Island’s South Side is closing after 23 years.
Lucy’s restaurant on Stanley Main Street will shut its doors in the last week of July, with owner Lucy Humbert moving back to the UK.
Ricky Chan Yau-kee has been managing the restaurant for almost all its 23 years, during which its menu has rarely changed, and has mixed feelings about it closing. He doesn’t know what he’ll be doing next.
“I was 23 years old when I started working at Lucy’s as a manager,” he recalls – quite young for such a position, though having previously worked at The Peninsula and the Regal Airport Hotel in Kai Tak, he would have been well qualified for the job.
“The guests were great and the salary was pretty good, so that’s why I stayed. The owner [Humbert] was always in the kitchen so the guests knew us better than her,” he says.
Many of our guests retired and their children prefer to go dine in other places