Why good food businesses are dying in Malaysia? - a note from food lover

I don’t travel overseas often but travel locally quite frequent. I have been to all the states in Malaysia, be it East or West. Since my childhood, my parents have brought me to so many great places, best eateries, awesome vacation spots and so on. As the time pass by, no matter how good those places were, at some point they will die out due to so many reasons, but the major ones are lack of support. Nowadays, like it or not, we all rely on Google Review or other social media reviews to help us make a decision, whether a place is worth to be visited. Why visit a restaurant when the review given is 1 star out of 5? Why take the risk when there is a small cafe nearby that offers great food with 4.8 star review. That sounds more promising, isn’t it? Sooner or later that restaurant with 1-star review by maybe 50 people will lose customers, and can no longer afford to pay rent and their workers. We can tell what will happen next, isn’t it? Shop rental in KL & Selangor especially is crazily high. Property owners are making more profit when all they do is just collect rent, while the tenant has to struggle to earn money to pay for rent. But that’s just how businesses work. If you are good, you stay, if not, goodbye.

But, what happened to those good eateries that no longer operates? What has went wrong? Friends and family came to support, but only wish that they are being offered free food or discounted food. They have really good products but marketing the products can be really expensive and pocket burning! For example, to market their product on renowned food delivery, they have to pay the agent 30% of the food price. If their cost of goods is 40%, they only have 30% for the staffs’ salary, rent, utilities etc. So what is left for their profit? Imagine that! To top it up, on those days they have lack of staffs, the service provided was slower than usual, and Google Guide customers irresponsibly and intolerably gave a 1-star rating for very slow service despite the luscious and affordable food offered.

This is just my 2 cents based on my observation. I am a proud Google Guide, well everyone or anyone can be a Google Guide but how many of us are really genuine and responsible guides?

Think before you review. And be tolerable. The power is in your hand.