Word: kong
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...just before noon on a Tuesday, and despite the rain, a few dozen schoolgirls in white uniforms and navy cardigans are milling about the 7-Eleven on Tong Chong Gai, a bustling Hong Kong side street of restaurants and cafés. A few of the teenagers grab chocolate milk and sushi rolls from the open chiller. The others queue up to order a hot lunch at the brand-new food counter that is manned by half a dozen employees in bright orange uniforms...
...Welcome to Hong Kong's first 7 Café, part of the U.S. convenience-store chain's global foray into fast food. Part convenience store, part fast-food restaurant, the café opened its doors last month with a rotating menu featuring dishes you're more likely to see in a college cafeteria than a corner store: chicken fillet with onion and black-pepper sauce, Japanese udon noodles with curry, penne Bolognese. "We've been a snack destination," says Tim Chalk, commercial director of Dairy Farm, which holds the 7-Eleven area franchise for Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Guangdong...
...ramping up food services is now seen as key to the industry's future. In Thailand, 7-Eleven sells burgers. In Japan, they fry their own chicken. In the U.S., a quarter of the chain's stores have rolled out oven-cooked pizzas. 7-Eleven's rival in Hong Kong, Circle K, serves toast and pasta dishes. "Convenience stores as an industry are heavily reliant on product categories such as cigarettes, which are under extreme pressure from a health and regulatory perspective," says Dennis Phelps, vice president for fresh food at 7-Eleven's corporate headquarters in Dallas. "People...
...convenience store already occupies a special place in the heart of Hong Kong. Although most of the stores are no bigger than a New York studio apartment, they're as ubiquitous as Starbucks in Seattle: there are nearly 1,000 7-Elevens in this city of 7 million - almost as many as in the whole state of California. (Circle K has a third of that number.) An estimated 85% of Hongkongers visit a 7-Eleven every month, according to the company, where they can do everything from withdraw money and replenish their subway passes to pay their electricity bill...
...years, 7-Eleven Hong Kong has shown deference to Hong Kong's love of food by offering ready-to-eat local fare like pork buns, shao mai and fish balls. (The more familiar roller-grill hot dogs and Slurpees are also available at some of the stores.) In fact, Casey Lum, who researches extensively on Hong Kong food culture and is the director of graduate studies in communication at William Paterson University, says part of the company's success in Hong Kong is due to the fact that it has become a "glocal" chain - a global brand adapted to local...