Breakfast for dinner: Why do some restaurants in Singapore stay open 24/7?

SINGAPORE – Few people would describe Singapore these days as a city that never sleeps. Perhaps, having just turned 61 and lumbering past middle age, it has outgrown the all-night benders of youth.

Its infrastructure has followed suit. SMRT’s Night Rider bus clocked in its last shift in 2022, and liquor licensing hours were shortened in 2013 to curb disorder, though they have been tentatively extended to 4am again in nightlife hot spots Boat Quay and Clarke Quay as part of a year-long trial. 

The crowds, too, have ebbed, which in turn has forced several restaurants to turn in earlier.

Long-time supper stalwart Nana Original Thai Food, which once ran 24/7 outlets in Clementi and Kallang, now closes between 9.30pm and 4am, in part because footfall has dropped by around half. 

But darkness has yet to fully descend on this city. A few eateries around the island still keep the lights on round the clock and, together, they offer up a respectable range of late-night nosh. Pancakes at 3am, anyone? 

This reporter drops in for a midnight bite, and to find out why these restaurants bother to stay open in those quiet hours before dawn.

The lights are on 

If you find yourself awake and hungry in the wee hours of the morning, Tanjong Pagar is the place to be. A good proportion of restaurants keep the kitchen running till midnight and a handful – mostly Korean barbecue joints – even stay open beyond, ready to feed bleary-eyed night owls stumbling through their doors. 

The Gogijip in Tras Street is determined to outlast them all, and by 6am, it is usually the last institution standing. 

Owner Annabelle Lee, 37, has built her business in Singapore on novelty.

Her fried chicken brand, Kko Kko Na Ra, introduced Singaporeans to this snack in 2008, before it attained mainstream popularity. It was also one of the first few restaurants to serve ganjang gejang (raw marinated crabs), which it added to the menu that year.

Now that these items have become a staple in Korean restaurants, she needed a fresh differentiator.

“What’s next? Operating 24 hours. We need to be the leader in the scene,” she tells The Straits Times. “Since we were one of the first to bring Korean supper culture here, we also wanted to introduce the idea of 24-hour Korean soup dining, which is very common in South Korea.” 

Maintaining round-the-clock operations is not easy. Naturally, it comes with higher operating costs – labour, utilities, cleaning, maintenance, you name it – and demands more of staff, who have to remain ready and alert, even when the restaurant quietens down past midnight. 

“We constantly review whether the demand justifies the cost, and we try to adjust in a practical way without losing the main purpose of the 24-hour concept,” she says. 

In the light of rising costs and manpower constraints, the restaurant has started closing at 3am on Tuesday mornings and reopening at 9am. “This gives our team time to rest, allows us to carry out deeper cleaning and maintenance, and helps us manage operations more sustainably.” 

For now, however, Lee still sees the value in staying open the rest of the week. It projects reliability, she says. “Customers know they can come to us late at night, after work, after drinks or for an early-morning Korean soup meal.” 

At Cafe de Muse in Orchard Road, it is all about branding too. “To be honest, a 24-hour cafe doesn’t always generate meaningful profit overnight,” says owner Jasmine Lee, 59. 

But she sees it as a long-term investment. “The market in Singapore is competitive, so this is one way to strengthen our brand identity.” 

Joji’s Diner in Upper Serangoon Road, on the other hand, remains open round the clock as a mark of authenticity. It is, after all, modelled on the classic American diner, complete with red vinyl booths, chequered floors, vintage memorabilia and a menu extolling the wonders of potatoes and deep-fried food. 

Owner George Tang, 27, says: “I just like the idea that the light stays on forever in these places. They serve comfort food and convenience any time. It’s almost like we’re building a community here.”  

It is hard to predict how crowded the diner will be in the middle of the night. Sometimes, it heaves with partygoers; other times, it is dead silent. He is not sure how feasible running a 24/7 diner is in the long term, but hopes to hold out for as long as possible. 

This arrangement, however, actually makes the most operational sense for Srisun Express, a prata chain with outlets in Bishan, Serangoon, Hougang and more. “It’s just easier this way,” says owner Jayanthi Elan Goven, 41. “If it’s not 24 hours, you might get workers who don’t turn up or aren’t prepared.” 

The quieter hours also give chefs some breathing room to prepare for the day’s service so that they are ready for the breakfast crowd, which trickles in as early as 5am. 

But is anyone home?

Let us rewind four hours, to 1am on a Saturday morning in Serangoon Gardens. 

Across the road from a half-packed Srisun Express, RK Eating House is bustling, though not completely full. All the lights are switched on, cranked up to maximum luminosity.

Like a moth, I cannot help but draw closer. 

There, I meet fellow diners, Jeselle Somasundram and Keira Lim, both 22. “This is our spot,” Somasundram, a student at Singapore Management University, tells me. They come here whenever Lim, who has just graduated from the University of Bristol, is back in Singapore. 

It is close to home, and the food is cheap and delicious. “Sometimes, you just want something oily in your system this late at night,” says Lim. 

Once, they lingered so long, they fell asleep right on the table, waking up only when the sun rose at 7am. “We just have too much to say to each other,” Somasundram says with a laugh. 

Down south along Orchard Road, a couple of tourists are trying to snatch a quick nap at Cafe de Muse too. They power back up when their hot tea arrives, taking long, careful sips.

It seems like the sensible thing to order at this hour.

I, however, have gone for the fresh mango cheese bingsu, a four-part whopper served with fresh fruit, ice cream, mango mousse and a side of theatrics (the dry ice is a lot to process at 2am). And this, already, is the option of restraint. My dining companions insist that the equally elaborate chocolate bingsu would have been “too much”. 

Back at RK Eating House two weeks later, I prove neither older nor wiser, this time putting my digestive system through the wringer by forcing it to break down a plate of prata with curry with chicken with mutton with eggs with sambal in the middle of the night. 

As it turns out, I am not the only one with such gastrointestinal ambitions. “You’ll be surprised,” says Srisun’s Elan Goven. “We get a lot of customers ordering full-fledged meals like rojak and murtabak late at night. People really do go for the heavier items.” 

Most of Srisun Express’ after-hours customers are patrons aged 20 to 40 – biker groups, teenagers, taxi drivers and the like, though it also welcomes a few families with young children on weekends. 

The late-night clientele at The Gogijip consists mainly of supper groups, drinkers and shift workers in their 30s and 40s. On average, staff serve around 20 customers between midnight and 6am on weekdays, and around 30 to 40 on weekends. 

Their cravings are equally diverse. “Late at night, people usually want food that is warm, hearty, flavourful and satisfying,” says owner Lee. 

Soups and stews are in demand at such hours, as are BBQ plates and other sharing dishes. “That is why we kept the full Gogijip menu available 24 hours instead of creating a very limited late-night menu.” 

Her team will also be adding Kko Kko Na Ra’s fried chicken – now available until 1am – to the all-night menu soon. 

Can the night be saved?

Lee, a veteran of Singapore’s supper scene who has been running late-night restaurants since 2008, says the night is no longer alive the way it once was. 

A common refrain, echoed by other restaurateurs like Tang, is that the decline of traditional nightlife has dragged the supper industry down with it. 

“It’s half as crowded now,” Serangoon resident Jack Tan, 37, says of RK Eating House, which he has been patronising since his secondary school days. “We need more supper spots. I can’t get a proper coffee anywhere at this hour.” 

“The Grab drivers outside will tell you the same,” adds Victoria Ngyuen, 39, who runs Miss Saigon, a 24/7 Vietnamese eatery in Orchard Plaza. “Nowadays, fewer people go out at night. It’s different from Vietnam, where the city really never sleeps.” 

A decade ago, Srisun Express might have made $3,000 overnight on a Friday or Saturday, before the Covid-19 pandemic wiped out its profits. “Since 2020, the crowd has just died off. I think it’s also because delivery platforms have come up and more people started ordering online,” says Elan Goven. 

Whereas nearly all her customers would have dined at the restaurant in the past, she now estimates that 60 per cent of her sales come from online orders.

The rising cost of living has also made diners more circumspect, forgoing tiny luxuries to save up for big-ticket expenses like travel. 

At its lowest, the restaurant was making $300 to $400 a night from supper sales. “And that is really shocking. If we drop below $1,000 in earnings, it doesn’t make sense for us to open 24/7.”  

On the bright side, things have started picking up in the last couple of years, with sales approaching 70 per cent of their pre-pandemic peak.

What is driving this upswing? Well, for one thing, she reckons the CDC vouchers probably help. 

“I also think that generally, people have started making a more deliberate effort to socialise and hang out together,” she adds.

 The Gogijip’s Lee insists that the appetite for supper is still there; people just need an excuse to stay out.

“If more bars, entertainment venues and businesses are able to operate later, together with policies that make late-night operations more viable, I think that would naturally bring more people back into the supper scene as well,” she says.

Where to satisfy your late-night cravings

Joji’s Diner for waffles and pancakes 

Where: 534 Upper Serangoon Road
Open: 24 hours 
Info: jojis.sg  

In true American diner fashion, Joji’s Diner woos customers with big, hearty plates of food. Start your day – or end it – with the likes of chicken and waffles ($14.90++) and a slapjack fry up ($12.90++), which comes with a stack of inch-thick pancakes, scrambled eggs, potato chunks and a lamb sausage. 

Feeling indulgent? Splash out on a steak and eggs ($24++) or one of the diner’s ultra-indulgent milkshakes. The chocolate milkshake ($11.90++), in particular, looks like something out of a 1990s sitcom, complete with a pink doughnut. 

Miss Saigon for banh mi 

Where: 02-56, 150 Orchard Road
Open: 24 hours 
Info: www.instagram.com/misssaigonsg 

Nothing puts the midnight munchies to bed like a thick, crusty loaf of banh mi, stuffed with piping hot meat and fresh herbs. Get the grilled BBQ pork option from Miss Saigon ($9.90) if you are craving something classic or take a chance on one of the specials – the special beef piper lolot ($10.90), for instance, filled with minced beef, lemongrass and herbal seaweed. 

For the more adventurous, the store has an extensive selection of other Vietnamese dishes, including beef offal ($12) and caramelised braised catfish ($12). 

The Gogijip for raw marinated crab 

Where: 01-01, 33 Tras Street
Open: 24 hours, except on Tuesday mornings, when it is closed from 3am to 9am 
Info: www.thegogijip.com  

If you can rustle up enough people for a feast at this hour, head down to The Gogijip. The dining room may have quietened down, but the kitchen is no less lively, slinging out plates of Ganjang Gejang ($85++) and bowls of hangover soup ($30++). 

The grills stay hot round the clock too. Korean barbecue options range from $18++ for pork skin to $69++ for premium bone-in beef short rib.

RK Eating House for prata ‘sunami’

Where: 1 Kensington Park Road 
Open: 24 hours 
Info: www.foodpanda.sg/chain/cf3on/rk-eating-house 

It is missing the “t” in its name, but the prata “sunami” ($14) from RK Eating House still manages to channel the overstimulating chaos of its catastrophic namesake, flooding a feeble plate at RK Eating House with various curries, prata, mutton cubes, chicken tikka, two runny soft-boiled eggs and a generous dollop of sambal for good measure.

Wash it down with a five-litre tower of Milo ($23.50), or nibble on a plain prata ($1.40) if you do not quite feel up to the task.

Cafe de Muse for bingsu

Where: 01-K5/K6 Shaw House, 350 Orchard Road
Open: 24 hours 
Info: www.cafedemusesg.com  

The sun goes down yet, somehow, the heat lingers. On nights like these, cool off with a bowl of bingsu at Cafe de Muse. Prices start at $18++ if you get it with rice cakes, a brownie or green tea. 

If the bells and whistles are what you seek, opt for one of the premium bingsus, which come with an extra dollop of dry ice for photography. It comes in two flavours: with fresh mangoes and vanilla ice cream ($39++); and with chocolate sauce, chocolate ice cream and gianduja noisette choux puffs ($39++).