Why Chinese restaurant food is worth so much more than ‘cheap and cheerful'
It's the most high-profile restaurant switch-up in recent memory, not to mention one of the quickest: Song Bird opened in August last year. With now-shuttered jazz bar Bobbie's downstairs, the multi-level Bay Street venue reportedly cost upwards of $13 million. Before the closure announcement, Song Bird had also expanded its menu to include more influence from across Asia than strictly China and Hong Kong.
So what happened? Is there just no market for Asian food in Double Bay? Sydneysiders regularly travel from all postcodes to eat at Perry's two-hatted Margaret on the opposite block. Why didn't Song Bird fly as high?
I don't have all the data for a detailed postmortem of the restaurant, but I do reject one of the reasons Perry provided. Key to the weak trading, he told Australian Financial Review Magazine editor Matt Drummond, was the reluctance of some diners to pay premium prices for Chinese food.
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