2026-01-02
Oh 2025, what a year you’ve been!
We started this little labour of love back in 2021 with the desire to make Singaporean food from the heart & we have done so with imagination, audacity and conviction to achieve that. To this day, we drill into our team to only put out food they would be proud of. If they’re not, back it goes to be remade.
We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved for this self-funded small family business & how we’ve grown over the last 5 years. Expanding to in the middle of last year was a huge risk & one we felt blindly optimistic about. We knew it would take time to build it up & felt good about carrying its own weight & also helping to cover its sister location while it finds its own feet.
What we didn’t expect was for the economy to take a dive harder than after Covid. In Q4, we noticed a 30% drop YOY & let us tell you, not many businesses or individuals can emerge unscathed in such a dip in revenue, hence so many closures. As the middle income shrink rapidly due to uncertainty & they eat out less, our rent has continued to climb, cost of goods have continued to escalate, minimum wage went up once again & yet, the government has done nothing to help small businesses survive. With the way things are, we need to see a full house every day, not just the weekends. We can’t ever have a bad day coz then whatever we make on a good day goes towards paying the wages and the wastage of the bad one. Truth be told, the math ain’t mathing & we’re barely surviving.
As it is, we’re the only place selling Singaporean food in Toronto and it’s been an uphill battle right from the start. People have no idea what SG food is & those who vaguely do, have no idea what it takes to make & sell it. Those who do, compare us to the cheap hawker fare in SG & trample on our efforts. Everything we’ve done so far has been labourious and accessibility to difficult-to-find ingredients has been limited, making the process costly. Creating awareness & educating people about Singaporean food has been a full time job. Trying to correct people who pretend to know our food is tiring. Trying to not let haters tear us down is exhausting. Trying to not let the bad reviews affect me has been an emotional & mental roller coaster.
People have no idea how difficult it is to run a food business. Everyday is a constant struggle, balancing the cost of doing business & doing what we love.
See us smiling here? You wouldn’t be able to tell of all the numerous sleepless nights, anxiety attacks, anguished tears, clutched fists and furrowed brows. It’s been a tough year for us. Last year, we’ve had to deal with some health issues and also some very heavy emotional ones. Through it all, D and I are so grateful to have each other to lean on. I couldn’t imagine either of us going it alone, without each other. We wish it had been unicorn farts & sparkly confetti but it’s been an extremely challenging year & we are sharing because sharing creates human connection & human connection is supposed to be vulnerable, messy and humbling.
Last year has taken a lot out of us but we’ve also had many blessings. I reversed diabetes, D and I have grown so much as a married couple while being business partners, finding seemingly impossible compromises in both life and work. We’ve trained and amassed a tight team that feels like family and we opened and have seen steady growth over the months. People have been coming from across Canada & US, many more than previous years & told us how much they love us. Thank you so much for keeping us going! ❤️ It boggles our minds sometimes how & why people find us. Like why us?? Regardless, we’re honored to have been a part of every journey. Thank you for including us. 💕 Thank you, all you advocates of SG food & our fans who come in regularly to support us. We’re so, so grateful for you. 🥰
For 2026, we’re under no illusion that it’ll be stellar or without struggles. In the meantime, we need all of you to come out to support all the small businesses you want to see continue. It is now more critical than ever. If things don’t pick up for many of us in the next 3 months, many more businesses will face closure. For 2026, we wish for these long days to be kinder, gentler and easier. Let this be the year we can finally exhale, to thrive & not just survive, the year to rest a little. As we gallop into the year of the Horse, we wish for more courage & strength for everyone going through tough times. And as always, peace, so much peace. ❤️
Happy New Year, y’all!
