Long queues to bid 42-year-old bakery farewell

Residents queued an hour to snatch the last delicacies at the 42-year-old Kwan Hong Bakery in Sham Shui Po on its last day yesterday.

The fans waited patiently for their chance to buy mooncakes and other traditional cakes, including the renowned “chicken cakes” from the bakery, which was run by a couple surnamed Ng.

The bakery had to close after a new landlord asked for a rental increase of 40 percent. Since then, another landlord in the same district offered to help out, but the couple decided to rest for a while and consider reopening next year.

“All of them here come from this neighborhood. Most of them are elderly people,” the male owner, Ng, said.

But on the bakery's last day, young people born in the 1990s and 2000s also joined the queue, wanting to try the treats before they were gone.

All the bakery's bread and cakes are made by hand. Fifty plates of chicken cakes are made a day, smelling of malt and fermented bean curd.