Why you keep seeing the same stalls at new hawker centres

SINGAPORE – Walk into any modern hawker centre today and there are a few things you might notice at first glance: big fans; high, airy ceilings; and a Munchi Pancakes stall in the corner. 

By now a fixture of the local street food scene, the brand has stalls in 11 of 16 socially conscious enterprise hawker centres, or SEHCs, as hawker centres built after 2015 are called.

Joining it in this pantheon of household names are the likes of Eng Kee Chicken Wings, now 12-outlet strong; Tong Fong Fatt Hainanese Boneless Chicken Rice, with over 15 stalls; as well as up-and-comers like Berempah Bros, which will have seven outlets across Singapore by end-September. 

What they have achieved is no small feat: scalable success in an industry beset by manpower issues and diner apathy.

The system, at first glance, does not seem to encourage expansion either. According to the National Environment Agency’s rules, each individual can rent only a maximum of two cooked food stalls across all types of hawker centres. 

So how have these hawkers managed to build a sprawling business from a single, sweaty stall? And what does their growing presence mean for hawker culture? 

A calculated risk

Success came as a surprise to Kumiko Tan. After three failed bids, the Singaporean founder of fast-growing thunder tea rice brand Hakka Leipopo finally opened her first stall in Bukit Merah in December 2021. 

“We thought this location had more seniors, so we put in quite a high bid,” says the 45-year-old, who started making thunder tea rice in an attempt to recapture the homely taste her husband, Khoo Hao Ting, 45, remembered from his childhood in Johor Bahru. 

“But we realised that seniors prefer dishes with stronger flavour like char kway teow. A lot of our customers ended up being younger people in their 30s.” 

This gave her the confidence to take her food to a younger neighbourhood. “Just try lah,” she recalls thinking when One Punggol Hawker Centre was announced, despite not knowing exactly what the operators were looking for. 

It worked: She was invited to a taste test and, shortly after, informed that the stall was hers.

Hakka Leipopo now has five stalls across Singapore, four in hawker centres – two stalls are registered under her name and two under her husband’s – and one in a Plaza Singapura foodcourt. “But we’re not just opening stalls for the sake of it,” she says. “We settle down in a new location, see if we can handle it well, then consider opening elsewhere.” 

She has no fixed target in mind, but hopes to cover a broad geographical spectrum so that more Singaporeans can get a taste of Hakka tradition. “We want people to remember the food their grandmothers cooked for them, but we also want to show that this kind of food is not just for old people. If we don’t attract younger customers, this tradition might die out,” she says. 

Fellow hawker Derek Cheong also wants to champion regional heritage, and carefully selects hawker centres in which his ayam berempah brand, Berempah Bros, is likely to thrive. 

For instance, Bukit Canberra Hawker Centre was picked for its strong marketing presence and because it lacked a signature offering. Woodleigh Village Hawker Centre also piqued his interest due to its young population. 

“Hawker centres make the most sense for us economics-wise. With $25,000, you can open a stall, whereas for restaurants, you’re looking at a minimum of at least $200,000 to $500,000 to start,” says the 29-year-old of MasterChef Singapore fame. The private chef and Nanyang Technological University dropout triumphed on the show’s second season in 2021.

“Hawker centres are also more accessible for people compared with coffee shops because they’re usually built near MRT stations.” 

He is cautious, however, about the dip in quality that sometimes comes with expanding too fast, too soon and conducts random quality checks at his outlets weekly.

“Food is subjective and it’s hard to tailor our adjustments to suit everyone’s palate. But as a general guideline, if the food gets tastier, I consider it a good job,” he says. 

The family behind Eng Kee Chicken Wings likewise runs a tight ship, ensuring all newcomers are thoroughly trained in the art of deep-frying before they are sent off to run their own outlet. 

Nicholas Lim, for one, was schooled by his uncle, who heads the brand. The 28-year-old Nanyang Polytechnic graduate, who previously worked in sales and delivery, spent a month learning how to marinate the brand’s famous chicken wings before being allowed to contribute to daily operations. 

Now that he runs his own stall at Buangkok Hawker Centre, he understands just how crucial that month was. “Our biggest challenge is maintaining consistency and quality across the outlets,” he says. 

Manpower is also an issue for the 37-year-old brand, which started growing around 2022, after opening its fourth outlet. With Lim and some of his cousins now on board, the team at last had enough hands to power full steam ahead.

Having conquered the hawker scene, they are now experimenting with different concepts like cafes. 

“But we definitely want to open more hawker stalls,” says Lim. “We’re an old brand, so we bring an old-school style of cooking to the neighbourhood, and that’s something quite unique.” 

Does success beget more success?

NEA is aware that some hawkers take on more stalls at hawker centres by roping in family members and registering those stalls under their names. That is fine, provided those relatives personally operate their respective stalls. 

A spokesman adds: “NEA does not restrict franchising arrangements for hawker brands, nor does it place limits on the number of stalls a particular brand may operate, as long as the registered stallholders fulfil the tenancy requirements by personally operating their stalls.”

Still, there is some unease surrounding the topic of hawker expansion.

One prominent brand pulled out of an interview with The Straits Times when conversation turned to the technicalities of how it grew its business. The spokesman declined, saying the brand did not wish to “create the impression that we have a backdoor to these things (tendering for hawker stalls), which we don’t”.

Their skittishness raises an interesting question: Do more popular brands get a leg up in the tendering process for SEHCs, where the allocation of stalls is decided, not by qualifying bids, but by the operators, whose job it is to ensure quality and variety? 

In Cheong’s view, it is “100 per cent” easier to secure another stall once you have already set up shop in a hawker centre run by the same operator. 

“The more people you know, the more doors you’ll open,” adds his business partner Ong Zhen Ning, 28. “Once people know you, they’re more likely to take a chance on you.” 

It makes better business sense too. Cheong says: “Operators will want to find people to take over an outlet as soon as possible so they can have rental income. But not everyone might be keen. So they might look for brands with decently strong branding that already have an outlet in one of their other hawker centres.”   

While established brands are sometimes informally invited to participate in an upcoming tender, operators say that all applicants receive fair consideration.

According to Joe Sng, associate director of Fei Siong Social Enterprise, hawkers who are invited undergo evaluation, where they are assessed on aspects such as food quality, consistency and operational viability. He adds that “those with a proven track record would also have a competitive advantage”.

Not that this guarantees success. “If we have good working relations, operators might keep us in mind. But competition is pretty stiff so it’s not necessarily easier,” says Jaslynn Puah, 44, who oversees operations across Eng Kee Chicken Wings’ outlets. 

For example, the chain unsuccessfully applied for a stall in Punggol Coast Hawker Centre, despite its presence at Anchorvale Village Hawker Centre, also run by FairPrice Group. Lim says: “We don’t really know what the selection criteria are, but we try our best to maintain a good relationship.” 

King Grouper Fish Soup, with over 30 outlets including stalls in Sengkang Square and Punggol Central, also lost out on a stall in Punggol Coast. “Maybe the operator was worried it would seem like we’re monopolising the area,” muses Jennifer Chew, 51, head of operations at King Grouper Fish Soup. 

When bountiful becomes boring

It is not an unfounded concern. Industry watchers like K.F. Seetoh have made the same observation. “I can easily name you six to eight brands that I keep seeing around, off the top of my head,” says the veteran food critic and Makansutra founder.  

So has Ong. By his estimates, in hawker centres operated by the same company, around a third of stalls are made up of repeat brands found in other SEHCS.

Sure enough, ST found that across the seven FairPrice-run SEHCs, between 21 per cent and 38 per cent of stalls overlap.

At three out of four SEHCs run by Fei Siong, the rate of recurrence is over 33 per cent. The one outlier is Ci Yuan Hawker Centre, which shares only roughly 11 per cent of brands with other hawker centres under Fei Siong.

Typically, SEHCs have around 30 to 40 stalls in total.

In comparison, the rate of overlap is lower at the NEA-run hawker centres ST surveyed.

At Golden Mile Food Centre, for instance, 15.7 per cent of its 100 or so stalls have outlets elsewhere in Singapore. Similar figures were observed at Chomp Chomp Food Centre (18.5 per cent) and ABC Brickworks (16 per cent). 

Such ubiquity is not always a bad thing. For one, it might incentivise younger hawkers to get into the trade.

“One younger hawker was telling me that because he saw that someone’s chain had been successful in making money, it did make him more interested in becoming a hawker. He seemed to realise, ‘Oh, this is actually a viable model’,” says China-born American chef, food writer and researcher Jenny Dorsey, who spent two years researching hawker policies in Singapore under the Fulbright and National Geographic research grant. 

And to patrons, a recognisable brand name might signal reliability – in theory at least. 

In any case, some Singapore diners are unbothered. “I’m not very brand-conscious,” says J.J. Lui, a 38-year-old teacher who works near Senja Hawker Centre and was having lunch there on a Friday afternoon. “I care more about whether the quality is good.” 

Others have stronger views. “A bit boring lah, seeing the same brands all the time,” says a 50-year-old Senja resident who wanted to be known only as Mr Tan. 

At a broader level, Seetoh worries what homogenisation might signal for Singapore’s hawker culture, which has traditionally thrived on diversity and accessibility.

“Seeing the same thing over and over again doesn’t move the symphony of our hawker stalls,” he says. 

“New hawkers with unconventional ideas might fear opening a stall because they might think they can’t survive with their type of food, and this stems evolution.” 

Dorsey, too, cautions that the proliferation of too many big names risks diluting the intimate nature of hawker dining. “It changes the ambience of the hawker centre. It feels more sterile. The businesses feel like they aren’t as integrated into the neighbourhood because the uncle or auntie running the stall isn’t always selling their own recipe.” 

Is that just the nostalgia talking? Maybe, but there is a sense of eccentricity and familiarity that the franchise model, often sustained by a revolving door of short-term workers, cuts out.

No single route to success

Besides, expansion comes with its fair share of risk.

Tommy Pang, the 29-year-old Nanyang Polytechnic alumnus behind hawker chains Shi Nian Pig Leg Rice and Bai Nian Yong Tau Foo, learnt this the hard way. 

At its peak in 2021, Shi Nian opened over 30 outlets islandwide in under a year. But the crash came just as suddenly. After losing half a million dollars in six months, he had to shut nearly 20 outlets in quick succession. 

The problem, he surmises, is that the brand expanded prematurely, without a system or strategy. “At one point, we even had multiple stalls in the same GrabFood radius, so they were all eating into the same piece of the pie,” he says. 

Some of his outlets were also run by franchisees, which made it harder to maintain consistent quality. “They didn’t put in the same amount of effort as I did because their main goal was to get a return on their investment, whereas for me, this brand is my baby.” 

So instead of approaching random strangers on the street, which was how he sometimes used to source for franchisees, he now relies on family and friends to run Shi Nian and Bai Nian’s over 10 outlets.

He is exploring new concepts like Dudu Cantonese Cuisine, an eatery in Marsiling Industrial Estate specialising in claypot dishes. But he has no plans to depart the hawker centre track, which he considers a good stepping stone for a career in F&B.

Therein lies the crux of the issue for Dorsey: What primary purpose are hawker centres supposed to serve? Are they meant to be timeless bastions of Singapore’s culinary heritage or low entry-barrier incubators for aspiring F&B entrepreneurs? 

The two-stall rule seems to favour the former intent. She says: “I guess it makes sense in that hawker centres aren’t supposed to be breeding grounds for the next Starbucks. You’re supposed to cultivate a good business for yourself and put a roof over your family’s heads.

“But then you allow this franchise model which, yes, is technically in line with the rules, but doesn’t follow the spirit of the rule. So what’s the point of having the two-stall rule in the first place?” 

The way Seetoh sees it, if the two-stall rule is going to exist, then it should apply to the brand as a whole. “Once hawkers have hit two or three successful hawker stalls, they should go into the private sector or expand overseas.” 

Some brands might find that other operating models would better serve their needs anyway.

With King Grouper Fish Soup’s premium produce – fresh giant groupers reared locally on the company’s own fish farm and priced upwards of $6.50 for a bowl of sliced fish soup – Chew says it intends to position itself as more of a foodcourt brand, gradually moving away from hawker centres.

“And in foodcourts, you have more of a crowd,” she adds.  

At the end of the day, popular hawkers are still hawkers – men and women trying to make an honest living with whatever means they have, and Seetoh says he does not begrudge them their success.

What he wants, though, is a way to better make room for both new and established players. 

Fei Siong Social Enterprise, for instance, allocates stalls with subsidised rentals to young hawkers who serve heritage dishes like lor mee and char kway teow. This is part of an entrepreneurship programme that also equips participants with mentorship opportunities, as well as marketing skills to build brand visibility.

Canopy Hawkers Group, which runs hawker centres in Bukit Canberra and Yishun Park, pays extra attention to first-timers. “This group will be assisted with regulation application and other necessary assistance to set up a hawker stall,” says a spokesman.  

On NEA’s part, it says it “disallows corporations from directly bidding for and operating hawker stalls to prevent aspiring independent hawkers from getting crowded out”.

Seetoh has another suggestion to keep the hawker scene thriving: Establish an academy of sorts to equip hawkers with the necessary skills to run their own stalls. Teach them the different ways to build an enduring business, be it running a single outlet or 20.