A new cafe has sprung up in Bukit Batok that is quite different from your typical hipster hangout that has become so common these days.

On Oct. 6, Reach Community Cafe opened at Block 417, Bukit Batok West Avenue 4.

This cafe serves up a wide range of western cuisine with specialty coffee. And their menu also changes every week.

While all these sound fairly typical, here's something to unique about it -- the cafe allows you to pay as you wish, meaning that you can give any amount of money for whatever you've ordered.

More importantly, what truly differentiates from other cafes is the fact that it is run by seniors, for seniors.

Ibasho Cafe in Japan

The Reach Community Cafe was inspired by Ibasho Cafe in Japan.

Ibasho Cafe was started in 2011 in response to the desire to rebuild communities after an earthquake in Ofunato.

“Ibasho” means “a place where one can feel at home, and be oneself". Similarly, what the cafe aims to do is to meaningfully engage seniors in the community by treating them as assets, not liabilities.

At Ibasho Cafe, drinks and snacks are served by older members of their community and aims to create a strong, informal support system.

The role of seniors

Just like Japan, Singapore has an ageing population. It has become increasingly important to keep seniors engaged and active.

Funded by Reach, the purpose of the cafe is to draw seniors who live alone, or who are "at risk of social isolation" out into a social space, either as a customer or a server.

As one Bukit Batok resident has shared, the cafe is a space for her to meet new friends:

"I am so bored at home when my daughters go to work. Coming to the cafe will help me stay active and meet new friends."

The cafe is also run by senior volunteers who take turns to cook, brew coffee and befriend other seniors who visit. Much like Ibasho cafe, they are heavily involved in the process of maintaining the cafe, from planning the menu to designing the cafe.

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Pay as you wish - Potential problems?

This pay-as-you-wish concept adopted by Reach Community Cafe is not new to Singapore.

Local dining establishment Annalakshmi has this concept, and so do others like Yoga Seeds' "Pay As You Wish Yoga" and Artify Studio's "Liberty Art Jam".

But this is not the main point.

Ivan Ho, a Reach staff member and manager of the senior citizens programme at Bukit Batok was quoted in the Straits Times saying that its main purpose is to encourage senior citizens to interact with other and make new friends.

While he acknowledged that people might potentially abuse the pay-as-you-wish system, he has also made promising observations from its first day of operations:

“So far, the response has been positive and most people who come have donated a sum of money when they leave. We also interact with the patrons to tell them about the purpose of the cafe and so on, so they don’t take it for granted."

Top photo adapted from Getty Images and Ibasho.org.