Under the Level 3 COVID alert, service industries have had to adapt or face financial losses. We made a trip to one hotpot restaurant that has pivoted to selling groceries. The new mini supermarket offers locals all the hotpot ingredients that were once prepared in the kitchen.

A customer rummages in the freezer, perusing shrimps, eels, and other seafood. Some have brought their own freezer bags to carry their haul. They check the outside shelves, then head inside to keep browsing.

Tseng Hung-wen
FTV reporter
You can see all kinds of flavorings here, as well as sweets, biscuits and drinks. But this is not a grocery store – it’s an all-you-can-eat hotpot restaurant.

The tables and chairs inside have all been packed up. Eating in is impossible for now. After profits fell to zero, the restaurant began offering takeaway hotpots and assorted lunch boxes. Then they hit on this plan to sell ingredients that couldn’t be cooked up in the kitchen.

Lin Tzung-yi
Hotpot restaurant chain manager
We got in a lot of ingredients, and we’re doing our best at the supermarket here to bring out and sell everything we can think of.

Consumer
You can’t eat in, and they need to survive and adapt to the circumstances.

It’s not an entire supermarket yet, but there’s a wide range of seafood, meat and other hotpot staples, as well as sweets, snacks and ingredients. It’s a convenient spot to pick up groceries for local residents and passersby.

Consumer
I came and had one of their durian ices last time. It was great. I want to come and support them, as I fear they might go under.

Lin Tzung-yi
Hotpot restaurant chain manager
From zero profits at first, we’ve grown to at least 5% of what it was. We can keep giving our employees jobs.

Just 5% of normal profits is a bitter pill to swallow, but this restaurant is making the most of the options available. Employees and local customers are keeping the business afloat, together.