Bamboo World Kitchen has closed both of its Vancouver locations

It’s been a rough couple of years for the hospitality industry and some businesses haven’t been able to overcome the onslaught of difficulties.

Bamboo World Kitchen is one such place.

The Vancouver restaurant concept operated in two locations in the city: one at 2690 Granville Street, which opened in February 2022, and one that only just recently opened in August 2022 at 794 West Broadway.

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In an email to Dished, the restaurant confirmed that both of its locations have officially closed as of December 15, 2022, which means that both opened and closed within the span of a year.

Sean Flynn, who has years of experience in Vancouver’s hospitality and restaurant industry, said in an email to Dished that the team “felt that this difficult decision was unavoidable given the economic headwinds we were facing.”

While the concept of Bamboo World Kitchen was born in mid-2020, Flynn says that the industry and consumer habits have changed drastically since then, resulting in an entirely different restaurant landscape presently.

“Firstly, with more people ordering food online from well-established restaurants, it meant that there were fewer shoppers circulating in the shopping districts seeking lunch or a snack. Secondly, the work-from-home and hybrid models meant that only a small fraction of people were at their offices and looking for lunch,” Flynn explained. “And for those that were, inflation meant that more and more people were bringing their own lunch to work. This made it very difficult to establish a new brand at this time.

“By the end of 2022, we had to take a realistic view, and the difficult decision to shut the business down,” he added.

Bamboo World Kitchen operated as a counter-service restaurant concept, serving healthy and sustainable eats with a global bent. Dishes were inspired by regions and cuisines from the Pacific Northwest, Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Japan, the Mediterranean, and Italy.