Chang Rong Huang’s dream was owning a buffet restaurant. Now, each morning he walks through the dark, empty shell of his dining room to cook for the trickle of customers he has left.

Huang, from Guangdong, China, worked 10 years for the previous owner before buying the restaurant and reopening it as Scarborough Buffet in 2015.

He took out a bank loan, used his house as collateral, and borrowed from family and friends.

Fish once swam by the 11,000-square-foot restaurant’s entrance. Summer brought as many as 10 tour buses of diners from Montreal to its Markham Road plaza lot on a daily basis.

Standing on bare concrete last week, Huang pointed to where the cashier stood, where the sushi bar and barbecue stations were.

What is left of the business must close by the end of April.

In a letter translated by a friend, Huang spoke of his sense of helplessness. “I am financially, mentally, physically, emotionally drained,” he wrote.

“The years it took to establish a good name, loyal clients, excellent service for the buffet restaurant, have been diminished to a takeout facility serving loyal clients from a side exit.”

Scarborough is justly known for restaurants and other food businesses, and the pandemic is claiming many.

Huang’s story has special ingredients — a lease that expired last September, a dispute with a landlord who wants space for a condominium sales office — but his is another local restaurant exhausted by a year of lockdowns.