Pyongyang-run restaurants losing customers in Russia

Waitresses serve food at a North Korean restaurant in Beijing, in this undated photo. Korea Times file

By Yi Whan-woo

North Korean restaurants, once the source of foreign cash for the country's nuclear program, are losing customers in Vladivostok, Russia, according to sources familiar with Pyongyang.

This suggests Pyongyang-run restaurants overseas are losing ground supporting the impoverished state in the face of prolonged international sanctions.

“The restaurants are losing customers, so it looks like the boom is slowing,” a source recently told Radio Free Asia (RFA). “The restaurants are even empty during lunch hours.”

The three North Korean restaurants in Vladivostok _ Kym Gang San, Morangak and Koryo _ had women in their 20s who were sent from Pyongyang as waitresses, singers and dancers.

The customers, however, are losing interest in such a mix of dining and entertainment, the source said.

It said Koryo doesn't appear to be run by North Korea anymore, while the Kim Jong-un regime manages Kym Gang San and Morangak.

“It (Koryo) might have been handed over to Russian management recently,” the source said. “It is now operated by Russians.”

The sources attributed the decline in customers to price, saying the restaurants have been popular for the singing and dancing of the young women, not the food.

“They'll only perform for tables who spend more than 10,000 rubles ($151),” the source said. “And what made the restaurants attractions in the first place are now difficult to see on a regular basis.”

Another source said the restaurants are seeking different strategies to attract customers.

“They've adopted a new reservation system, as the singing and dancing experience is only available to group customers spending 10,000 rubles,” the source said. “If this new scheme doesn't work, I don't know how these restaurants can survive here in Russia.

“Customers might feel it's not worth it, because these restaurants are expensive and they don't really have good food. The performances are all propaganda too.”

Before the United Nations sanctions on the North, an estimated 130 Pyongyang-owned restaurants in 12 countries were believed to be major sources of income for cash-strapped North Korea.

The North Korean restaurants have sprung up since the 1990s. Some 100 of them are in China while others are in Russia, Cambodia, Mongolia and Vietnam _ all of them Pyongyang's Cold War allies.