KUALA LUMPUR, July 2 ― A restaurant owner in Ipoh along with his staff have publicly apologised for having to raise the price of one of their set meals.

The Ayam Gepuk Ganteng team can be seen bowing in front of their restaurant in Meru as a sign of apology in a video posted on their Instagram.

Owner Muhammad Syairazmin Azril Alias told MStar that price increase amid the  Covid-19 pandemic was the reason that  left them no other choice but to raise the price.

"Previously, our Ayam Gepuk set was RM8, now we have to raise it to RM9 though our other sets remain the same price.

"Maybe there are those who couldn’t afford to buy our meals anymore because of the one Ringgit raise.

"We’ve talked about the price hike for a while, and we really don’t want to raise our price, but we have no choice.

"This is not for marketing purposes, but we want to send a message that this is not what we want either,” Azril said.

He said that their apology video was inspired by a Japanese company’s video made in a similar fashion.

"We had thought of a lot of ways to convey the news to our customers because we’re scared that they would be mad as they are also affected by the current situation.

"So, we came up with the video to let them know that we have tried our best to prevent the price hike but there’s nothing we can do.

"We understand if our customers are angry, so we did the video as a symbol of apology,” he said.

Azril was however pleasantly surprised and touched by the response from their followers and the public.

"They took it really well, they were very understanding, and they even want to continue supporting us.

"We currently have a drive thru at our restaurant and we’ve received a lot of customers lately who said they came after seeing the video.

"I almost cried after some customer said that they didn’t know about us until they saw the video on social media, who came in to show support.”

Starting off operating the business from home to opening a stall and now owning his own restaurant since March last year, the 25-year-old owner has been operating the Ayam Gepuk Ganteng for two years now.

The Ayam Gepuk Ganteng apology video has been viewed over 9,000 times on their Instagram and has received supportive comments from social media users.