Refinitiv Newscasts - Shut restaurants means boom for secondhand seller
23/12/2020 09:02
Click the following link to watch video: https://share.newscasts.refinitiv.com/link?entryId=1_jrbst8uo&referenceId=tag:reuters.com,2020:newsml_OVDA8G8RV_930&pageId=RefinitivNewscasts Source: Reuters Description: It's been a bumper year for one second-hand kitchen seller in Japan. Tenpos Busters has bought double the amount of old equipment after the global health crisis forced many restaurants to close. Flora Bradley-Watson reports. Short Link: https://refini.tv/3henSgp Video Transcript: A warehouse piled high with kitchenware near Tokyo is a graveyard showing the toll the global health crisis took on the city's restaurants in 2020. Stacks of old sinks, fridges, pots, pans and chairs, are all being refurbished and sold on by Tenpos Busters - a secondhand kitchen supplier. For them it has been a bumper year, Takahito Tooyama, the firm's sales Director, says they've bought double the amount of goods. In normal years, our warehouse doesn't get full or overflow with products. But because of the rising number of businesses or restaurants closing due to the coronavirus, our warehouse is overflowing. Between February and mid-December this year, around 126 restaurants and bars have gone bust in Japan. One of those forced to close was the ramen noodle shop Shirohachi in Tokyo's business district. Yashiro Haga, it's owner, got $165 selling his old kitchenware to Tenpos Busters. I've been slowly cleaning the shop by myself everyday. Now that my stuff is gone and the shop is bare and empty, it makes me sad. Yashiro's premises is small so social distancing and profits proved incompatible. Combine that with people encouraged to work from home, and his business of 15 years became unfeasible