End of a Hong Kong era as Dan Ryan’s US-style diner shuts after 27 years in Pacific Place

The shutters came down on ­American-style restaurant Dan Ryan’s on Sunday night after 27 years of serving up wholesome comfort food to Hong Kong diners.

Dan Ryan’s will be followed out of Pacific Place in July by popular Italian restaurant Grappa’s as landlord Swire Properties bids to overhaul the upscale mall’s food and beverage choices.

The move comes amid an ongoing decline in retail sales in the city, which is hurting the Admiralty mall’s luxury retail tenants.

Peter Chan, who has been been a Dan Ryan’s regular since it opened, said the restaurant meant more than a place to eat.

“I feel bonded here. For example, I’ve witnessed how the waitresses were promoted to seniors – and got married,” said Chan, who dined at the restaurant on its last day with his wife and son.

“I enjoyed sitting at the restaurant’s bar, chatting with the others and watching TV. Now I don’t know where to eat in Pacific Place,” he said.

Chan’s 37-year-old son Dominic, who has been a regular customer since his primary school days, said the Pacific Place restaurant was different from the other branches in Tsim Sha Tsui and Kowloon Tong.

“If you presented a movie ticket from the cinema next door, you would get HK$15 off on any purchase of HK$100 or more,” the younger Chan said.

The restaurant was also popular among expatriates.

“It’s very sad. Dan Ryan’s is iconic and part of the city’s pulse,” said Michael Sharmon, who became a regular when he moved to Hong Kong over six years ago.

Danny Fung, the restaurant’s manager, said its spirit would remain at a new Dan Ryan’s restaurant, still to be located, where animal head decorations and pendant lights would be retained.

In unpublished parts of a previous interview with the Post, Merritt Croker – CEO of owner Windy City International – remembered how Dan Ryan’s “changed the game” as one of the first full-service restaurants outside a hotel.

He said the city’s restaurant scene and Western dining has continued to evolve.

Croker recalled how Admiralty was largely a mess – “a hole in the ground and water in the bottom – and “everyone told me no one will come to Admiralty to shop because everyone goes to Central or Causeway Bay”.

But come the opening week in June 1989, Croker said it “was very interesting, and very stressful, times because it was the same week as Tiananmen Square [crackdown]”.

Croker recalled with emotion: “I was asked to look outside of the mall and I saw protesters, and later found out one million people marching down the street.

“You hear about the restaurant business being risky, but this was a great investment, and continues to be.”

In the last year, the restaurant racked up HK$54 million in sales and served an estimated 250,000 plates of food to customers.