Ping Pong ceases trading closing all remaining restaurants

Dim sum restaurant Ping Pong has ceased trading and closed its four remaining restaurants, 20 years after its initial launch.

In a statement on its Instagram, the company stated: “It’s a wrap. After 20 unforgettable years, all Ping Pong locations are now permanently closed.

“We’re incredibly proud of what we built, an independent hospitality brand full of creativity, flavour and soul. To everyone who joined us over the years, for dim sum dates, happy hours, bottomless brunches, and just-because catch-ups, thank you. It’s been sum-thing truly special.”

Prior to the announcement the group was still trading from four sites in London; Soho, Southbank, Bow Bells House and St Christopher’s Place.

Over the past few years Ping Pong had struggled with Covid debt and rent repayments. It reported losses of £1.4m in the year to March 2020 and a loss of £1.86m over the following 12 months before eventually posting a profit of £334,000 in the year to March 2022.

Ping Pong appointed administrators Begbies Traynor in November 2022, which agreed a pre-pack sale of the business to three company directors for £3.21m on the same day.

A report at the time from Begbies Traynor stated that the pandemic had caused “significant disruption” to the business, which had been kept afloat by a £500,000 loan from Sagiryan.

The brand was founded by restaurateur Kurt Zdesar with the backing of Igor Sagiryan in 2005 and had 13 restaurants by the turn of the decade. Zdesar left the company in 2007 and it closed some unprofitable sites shortly after.

By the end of 2022 Ping Pong had six London restaurants and a central production kitchen which employed 255 people.