I can only presume that this is also the case for the rest of the country and perhaps even a great deal of the world that celebrates the coming of the lunar new year. In Vietnam, this is the biggest celebration of the year and for the most part almost everything closes for a week to 10 days during this time.
I am a consumer and do not work for a local business so my life kind of carries on as normal during these times but it can be a bit alarming how almost every local business is closed and it can prove difficult to get something like food during this week. One thing that is kind of neat is the fact that the businesses that do work to stay open, often by offering their employees incentives to come to work during the holiday, end up absolutely killing it as far as customers are concerned during Tet (lunar new year).
src
Tet, as I have been told, is a time for you to return to your parents' home village or wherever they happen to live and eat, drink, and be merry for many days in a row. Seems like a fun time for sure and I am happy that this holiday exists and I am happy to see everyone revisiting family for a bit. That is always nice.
For businesses though, and especially businesses that don't do very well during the other times of year, I can't really understand why they wouldn't do everything in their power in order to stay open.
In particular I am thinking about a few of the local pubs that barely manage to have any customers during any time of year, that really could be doing well if they did what they had to do in order to stay open. I'll use this one local bar called "Scallywags" as an example because it is a good one.
src
This is the interior of Scallywags on any given day. Their promotional pictures are VERY different and indicate that it is quite busy but as someone that lives in the neighborhood I can promise you that they are not a popular place. It is nice enough sure, but it really doesn't have anything going for it that dozens of other places don't also have. I know the owner, and I will not put him on blast or anything but it isn't just Tet that they close for. There was an instance not that long ago where there were some important international football matches on but it was a public holiday. The places that stayed open were absolutely packed with customers because there was slim pickins as far as where you were going to go. Scallywags though, was extremely closed.
On the days that they are open there is almost never anyone that hangs out in it even though they have a ton of televisions and they get all of the sports. Had they been open during Tet this year (or any of the other years) they would have been filled to the brim with paying customers and I just can't understand why someone wouldn't do everything they could in order to make this happen.
The owner, who is not Vietnamese, could simply open the bar by himself and have a limited drink menu such as only drinks that can be taken out of the fridge or poured from a bottle. No cocktails, no fancy coffees, really nothing but bottles of beer and he would be selling them from dawn to dusk as well as long after that. Yet this place, and many others like it that really struggle to get any customers all the time seem the be the ones that close first and stay closed the longest during public holidays.
I suppose it is nice that he lets the staff all have the holiday off but honestly, if it was my business I would be behind that bar myself, even if it was just me, in order to get some new customers.
The locals here tend to make their choice as to which bar is going to be their local based on very little and during Tet the owner of this place could use this opportunity to get to know the locals and perhaps turn his place into a local hangout. Instead they are just closed and will continue to operate in mediocrity with very few people ever going to it.
It just doesn't make sense to me.
I just went on my usual morning walk and the few places that were open were absolutely killing it, even restaurants that I already know are not very good. To me it seems like staying open during this time would be a wonderful opportunity to make some money but maybe I just think about money too much.
Regardless, Happy Tet / Lunar New Year everyone!