The popular floating restaurant “Jumbo” in Hong Kong is in financial trouble and last week its owner announced that it had sunk in the South China Sea off the island to an unknown destination.
According to a statement from Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based investment firm Melco International, a 76-meter floating behemoth capsized near the Paracel Islands on Sunday after beginning to draw water in “favorable” weather conditions.
The company said in a statement on Monday that “no injuries were reported and no injuries were reported.”
“The water depth at the site is over 1,000 meters, making it very difficult to carry out salvage operations,” the statement said.
The company adds that the ‘jumbo’, which has been anchored in the south of Hong Kong Island for almost half a century, was inspected before departure and received ‘all necessary permits’ before departure last Tuesday.
The once-luxurious restaurant managers cited the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason for its permanent closure in March 2020, after nearly a decade of financial difficulties.
Opened in 1976 by Stanley Ho, King of Macau Casinos, who died in 2020, Jumbo symbolizes the height of luxury.
Designed like the Chinese Imperial Palace and once considered a must-see, this restaurant has attracted famous visitors from Queen Elizabeth II to Tom Cruise.
He has starred in several movies, including Steven Soderbergh’s thriller ‘Contagion’, about a virus that kills 26 million people worldwide.
Docked at Aberdeen Harbor, it’s a hotspot for seafood restaurants. Its popularity among tourists in particular has declined in recent years, even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Melco International Development, which announced the departure of “Jumbo” from Hong Kong to an undisclosed destination in May, has indicated that the restaurant has been unprofitable since 2013, with Hong Kong dollars ($ 12.7 million) cumulative losses).
Its operating costs are millions of dollars every year.
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