{"id":601976,"date":"2026-09-16T09:06:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T09:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/601976\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T09:06:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T09:06:13","slug":"auckland-restaurant-mekong-baby-closes-after-more-than-a-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/601976\/","title":{"rendered":"Auckland restaurant Mekong Baby closes after more than a decade"},"content":{"rendered":"
The restaurant served Southeast Asian fusion cuisine and received glowing reviews from Herald food reviewers over the years.<\/p>\n
It opened in 2013.<\/p>\n
Mekong Baby specialised in Asian fusion cuisine. Photo \/ Babiche Martens<\/p>\n
The Kulaks, who took over the restaurant in 2019, noted \u201cenormous\u201d changes to the hospitality industry in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly, it has never truly returned to what it was before Covid,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe economic pressures of the past few years have continued to build, making running Mekong Baby no longer financially sustainable.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have fought incredibly hard to keep going. Including selling our family home, and putting every penny to our name back into the business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mekong Baby opened in 2013.<\/p>\n
The owners also thanked their staff for the \u201ckindness and love\u201d they had shown, \u201cespecially now during our darkest time\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo every single customer who has walked through the doors, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n
The owners signed off their announcement: \u201cWith love, gratitude and broken hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The restaurant served Southeast Asian fusion cuisine and received glowing reviews from Herald food reviewers over the years.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,51,6794,138,5201,18509,380,6741,54180,164621,130,111,43,139,69,26890,10903,2539,131],"class_list":["post-601976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-auckland","tag-baby","tag-business","tag-closed","tag-closes","tag-decade","tag-doors","tag-eatery","tag-mekong","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ponsonby","tag-popular","tag-restaurant","tag-than"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}