These young professionals in Singapore left stable jobs to sell pasta, pastries and Chinese tea

SINGAPORE – Giving up a steady pay cheque to start a food and beverage business takes passion, savings and nerve. Doing so when even established operators are exiting the dining scene takes an even greater appetite for risk.

At Icon Village, husband-and-wife duo Arya Masagung and Angeline Chandraatmadja poured $100,000 into a 12-seat pasta bar despite having no professional cooking experience.

Former police officer S. Aiswarya quit her job to do a professional patisserie course in Bangkok, then work as an unpaid intern at a two-Michelin-starred restaurant there. She returned to open a cafe, and later pivoted to a takeaway kiosk.

Vincent Tay gave up a five-figure monthly salary in management consulting to start a premium Chinese tea brand.

They tell The Straits Times why they left stable jobs and strong career prospects for the risks and uncertainties of running F&B ventures.

Saikyo Pasta: Couple quit corporate jobs to invest $100,000 in pasta bar 

When husband-and-wife duo Arya Masagung and Angeline Chandraatmadja moved their home-based Saikyo Pasta into a bricks-and-mortar space at Icon Village on June 19, one of their proudest purchases was a second-hand commercial dishwasher costing $3,000.

However, neither knew how to use it. They spent their first week washing every dish by hand and running out of crockery during service before requesting an on-site demonstration from the dishwasher dealer.

Masagung says: “What might be basic to experienced chefs is completely foreign to us. We had a good laugh over the dishwasher incident. You need humour to get through this.”

For all their corporate credentials, the couple, both 33, are beginners in F&B.

Masagung, a former venture partner at Asia-focused venture capital firm Gobi Partners, graduated summa cum laude in business administration from the University of San Francisco. Chandraatmadja, previously an operations performance lead at Foodpanda, has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

She parted ways with Foodpanda at the end of 2023, while Masagung left Gobi Partners in December 2025.

Masagung says: “The market will never be perfect, and as beginners, it is more important to take that first step than wait.”

Before Saikyo Pasta, they say they cooked only about four times a year. Two of those meals were Indomie, Masagung admits with a chuckle.

Originally from Jakarta, the couple were Primary 6 classmates at Balestier Hill Primary School and started dating at age 16. Their 2018 wedding at Raffles Jakarta was featured in Indonesia Tatler. Masagung became a Singapore citizen at 20 after serving national service. Chandraatmadja, now a permanent resident here, plans to apply for citizenship. 

They initially wanted to invest in an F&B business, not operate one. But they realised they lacked the network and experience to assess potential investments confidently, so they decided to “learn the pain points first-hand”, says Masagung.

The idea for Saikyo Pasta was conceived in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the couple could not travel to Japan, their yearly holiday destination. They missed the Japanese-style pasta served at kissaten, or traditional coffee shops, and decided to recreate it in Singapore. But it took four years of discussing the possibilities and planning before they took the plunge.

Room to learn

They started Saikyo Pasta as a home-based business in December 2024. Masagung watched cooking videos on social media before testing his recipes on friends and family members. Chandraatmadja followed his recipes and took charge of preparation.

They struggled to complete orders before delivery drivers arrived and to keep their ingredients fresh without overstocking.

“We were never truly confident enough,” Masagung says. But his venture capital experience had taught him that no business model or projection was perfect. “The best companies that succeed are those that dare to try, fail a lot, learn fast and get up fast.”

The home-based business did not lose money, but the couple earned less than 10 per cent of their previous five-figure monthly salaries.

Working at home also blurred the line between business and marriage.

Masagung says wryly: “It was worse than corporate work. My wife, who became my business partner, would talk to me about work right up to bedtime. It was all-consuming.”

The couple invested about $100,000, mostly from their savings, in the 12-seat Japanese-Italian pasta bar. Their parents contributed about 20 per cent of the start-up costs.

Coping with physical demands

Standing all day left them with swollen feet and painfully raw soles.

Since the restaurant opened over a month ago, Masagung has lost 10kg, while Chandraatmadja developed wrist pain from tossing large quantities of pasta.

Their menu includes dishes they developed, such as Napolitan Pasta ($22.90+), Tiger Prawn Mentaiko Pasta ($22.90+) and Signature Cold Kombu Pasta With Ikura ($15.90+).

The couple, who plan to have children someday, say it is too early to know when Saikyo Pasta will break even or when they can start drawing salaries. Though they have a side income from investments, travel is off the cards for now.

Masagung points out the irony: “We wanted to bring the taste of Japanese comfort food to Singapore because we couldn’t fly to Japan back then.

“Now, thanks to opening Saikyo Pasta, we can’t travel to Japan since we have to keep the business up and running.”

Saikyo Pasta 
Where: 01-86/87 Icon Village, 12 Gopeng Street 
Open: Mondays to Saturdays, 11.30am to 2.30pm, 6pm to 8.30pm; closed on Sundays
Tel: 8723-1220 
Info: E-mail saikyopasta@gmail.com or go to @saikyopasta on Instagram

Daily Fruit: Former police officer opens $30,000 takeaway kiosk

What does police work and F&B have in common? For former Singapore Police Force scholar S. Aiswarya, the investigative mindset she developed as an officer serves her well as a small business owner.

The 33-year-old says: “As a police officer, you’re constantly identifying problems, gathering information and making decisions based on evidence. Running a business requires the same approach. When sales are down, instead of panicking, I analyse customer behaviour, costs, pricing and operations before making changes.”

The resilience she developed also helped her weather market setbacks.

Despite the ultra-competitive dining scene, which has seen many high-profile exits of late, Aiswarya decided to dive in as she felt staying open to change and the ability to adapt mattered more than waiting for the “perfect time”.

She graduated from the National University of Singapore with first-class honours in science in 2015, then began her career as an investigation officer at Bedok Police Division. When she resigned six years later in 2021, she was a deputy superintendent and operations officer at the Criminal Investigation Department.

Along the way, she realised cooking and baking had become more than hobbies.

“I reached a point where I felt that if I didn’t try pursuing it professionally, I would always wonder, ‘what if’.”

In January 2022, she moved to Bangkok for a 10-month patisserie diploma course at Le Cordon Bleu Dusit, which cost about $34,000 of her savings.

She also took on a six-month unpaid internship at two-Michelin-starred restaurant Gaa from June 2022, where the kitchen camaraderie reminded her of the police.

Home-based start

After returning to Singapore in December 2022, she started home-based bakery Blue Skies, selling bakes such as Hazelnut Chocolate Tart ($5) and Banana Miso Chocolate Cake ($12).

In July 2025, she took the plunge and invested $80,000 of her savings into the 30-seat Blue Skies Cafe & Bar in Rowell Road, which had Indian-inspired offerings on its menu.

Recruiting and managing eight full-time and part-time workers proved challenging. Amid rising manpower costs, her mother, two younger sisters and friends pitched in to clear tables and wash dishes.

Although the cafe was profitable some months, business slowed during school holidays, when more Singaporeans travelled.

About a year after opening, she sold Blue Skies for an undisclosed price and recouped all but $5,000 of her investment. The cafe closed on July 11 and will reopen under new owners soon.

She says: “I felt conflicted letting go of my first venture. But I left it in good hands and it was wiser financially to pivot to a more manageable model and concentrate on baking, which is my primary passion.”

Simpler business model

Next, Aiswarya invested $30,000 of her savings in Daily Fruit, a 368 sq ft takeaway kiosk at Icon Link@ClubStreet. It soft-launched on June 30 and opened officially on July 25.

With two part-time workers, she serves fruit-based drinks, as well as bakes made on site, such as Mini Financiers ($2 for three) and Mini Loaf Cakes ($2 each).

The smaller operation brings its own challenges. Most customers are office workers, leaving her with a narrow lunchtime window to rack up sales. Fruit is highly perishable and varies in sweetness and ripeness, making inventory and quality control trickier.

At Blue Skies, Aiswarya began paying herself a modest salary in November 2025, about one-third of her last-drawn police force salary. Describing herself as frugal, the singleton says she used to save 60 per cent of her salary as an officer. 

With the opening of Daily Fruit, she is back to not drawing a salary, although sales at the kiosk have begun covering daily operating costs.

She hopes to recover start-up costs and start paying herself within a year.

Reflecting on the changes in her life, she says: “In the police, there was structure, routine and a clear sense of purpose every day. As an entrepreneur, no two days are the same. Some days are incredibly rewarding and other days can be filled with uncertainty and difficult decisions.

“It has been much harder than I expected, but I don’t regret pursuing something I genuinely love.”

Daily Fruit
Where: B2-08 Icon Link@ClubStreet, 8 Club Street
Open: Weekdays, 11am to 4pm; closed on weekends
Tel: 8938-9951
Info: E-mail dailyfruitclubst@gmail.com or go to @dailyfruitclubst on Instagram

Yecha: He left a $10,000 job to start a tea business

Vincent Tay used to eat out every day without batting an eyelid at the cost. Buying a house and car once felt like a matter of when. But these days, both seem far off. Dining out has been reduced to an occasional treat.

The 30-year-old former Bain & Company management consultant gave up a monthly salary of about $10,000 two years ago and invested $20,000 of his savings in Yecha, a premium Chinese tea brand he plans to launch in Jakarta in August.

Born in Indonesia and a Singapore citizen since September 2025, Tay had promised himself he would give entrepreneurship a go before turning 30.

He reckoned that with time, a rising salary – coupled with having children or ageing parents to support – would make leaving harder.

He was inspired to become an entrepreneur after watching his father build a shipping business renting out tugboats and barges in Jambi, Indonesia. Instead of joining the family business, he wanted to build something of his own around a product that captivated him: quality Chinese tea.

Childhood memories of visiting his maternal relatives in China and watching his uncle brew oolong stayed with him. His maternal grandfather’s death two years ago reminded him not to postpone his ambitions. Around that time, severe burnout from work had left him feeling lost.

On a trip to China in October 2024 to attend his grandfather’s funeral, he found comfort in brewing tea.

“There is something about it that puts you in a reflective, contemplative state,” he says.

Despite his parents’ objections, Tay left his full-time job in October 2024 and took on contract and freelance work in management consulting for a year before starting work on Yecha in September 2025.

“My parents couldn’t understand why I was throwing away a high-flying career that I fought so hard for to start a small tea business operation which they felt was risky,” says the graduate with a degree in business economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Turning the page

Yecha means “page tea” in Chinese, symbolising a new chapter in his life.

In October 2025, Tay spent two weeks in China’s Fujian province visiting a tea expo, various suppliers and farmers, followed by three months at home tasting samples the suppliers had shipped to him. The trip taught him that access to quality tea depended on trusted introductions.

As Yecha’s sole owner, with zero employees, he handles sourcing, finance, marketing and packing on his own.

Yecha will launch with 11 loose-leaf teas, limited to 70 tins each. Long Jing (Dragon Well) and Zi Juan Bai (Violet White Beauty) cost 380,000 rupiah (S$27.30) each. Dian Hong (Yunnan Red) is 275,000 rupiah, while Mi Lan Xiang (Honey Orchid) is 320,000 rupiah.

Tay chose Indonesia as his launch pad for its large population and the gap he identified in the premium Chinese tea market there. He plans to expand to other cities like Surabaya later in the year. If Yecha records three consecutive profitable months in Indonesia, he hopes to launch it in Singapore in early 2027.

Freelance consulting and helping with his family business provide him with a base income to pay his bills. Tay and his wife, pilates instructor Caroline Trisnawati, 25, have put plans to buy a home and have children on hold while they give Yecha time to grow. His wife, who quit her engineering job in a semi-conductor manufacturing company to teach pilates in September 2025, is supportive of his dream. 

Meanwhile, Tay says that if his business cannot sustain itself, he is prepared to return to full-time employment, while keeping Yecha going at night and on weekends.

He worries that artificial intelligence is transforming the corporate landscape and that returning may prove harder than expected. Even so, he believes he made the right decision.

“The best time to take a bet on myself is now or never.”