CAFE owners in Selangor are barely recovering from Covid-19 lockdowns and are now hit with further losses from severe flooding since last Friday. 

Two coffee shop association heads told The Malaysian Insight that the past two years have been nothing but one wave of misfortune after another.

Lim Beng Hok, chairman of Selangor Klang and Coast Coffee, Tea and Restaurant Merchants said it is unclear when coffeeshops in flood-hit areas will be able to resume operations.

His association has around 200 members who are still calculating their losses. Discussions are also underway as to how best to help them.

“First it was the virus outbreak, and now the flood. It has just been like wave after wave of disaster,” Lim told The Malaysian Insight. 

While cleaning up and a halt to business will see coffee shops incur losses, another area of major loss will be inventory and ingredients.

Selangor and Kuala Lumpur Chinese Coffee and Tea Shopkeepers Association president Lee Chow Hait said the floods would have destroyed perishable items that coffee shops typically stock up to use in daily operations.

“Goods like bottled water and canned food can be salvaged, but flour and sugar will be gone,” he said.

Chinese coffee shops most affected in Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley are in Cheras and Kinrara in Puchong. 

For Selangor, this is the most severe flooding Lee recalls in years.

Continuous heavy rain resulted in devastating floods over the weekend in Perak, Pahang, Kelantan, Terengganu, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca and Negri Sembilan.

Close to 70,000 victims had been evacuated to relief centres, with Pahang and Selangor recording the highest number. – December 24, 2021.