May 20, 2019, 09:49 AM 
You might remember a really photogenic couple, both former Singapore Airlines flight attendants, making waves in late 2014 and early 2015 for their Penang noodle stall in Sengkang.
Here are some of the headlines and media interviews.
Screenshot from HerWorld
Image from Penang Kia
Image from Juwei Teoh
And some posts by satisfied customers.
https://www.instagram.com/p/yTZNQXIKaO/
Despite the press and the good reviews, they found themselves shutting the stall down by 2016.
So what went wrong?
Tough to survive
Mothership reached out to one-half of the stall owners, Julyn Teo, to hear from the owners themselves what went wrong.
Teo gave a few reasons why she and her husband Gerald Goh chose to close Penang Kia down.
"1. Challenging on looking for employees
2. High turnover. High food cost, rental cost. Yet Low selling price. Not really profitable
3. Long working hours to sustain business. Little time for family.
4. Lack of experience in a trade that we r totally new to."
Issues like long working hours have been consistently brought up as potential stumbling blocks in establishing a career as a hawker.
In fact, in an interview with HerWorld magazine back in 2015, Teo briefly talked about how she had to sometimes visit the market when her supplier had no stock for her.
She also had to peel around 300 prawns a day, and tend to a broth that took around eight hours to simmer.
The two main challenges Teo narrowed it down to, though, had little to do with the hard work.
The more pressing challenges she faced were rather issues like high turnover, and difficulties in employing workers.
What would she have done differently?
Hindsight is often 20/20, but it does provide a clearer idea of what could have been done better during the process itself.
Here are some of the points Teo felt they could have improved upon.
"1. Get to learn more in depth on the Govt policies, trends, turnover cost before committing.
2. Costing is important as profit margin is very Low.
3. Good to have a team of capable workers on deck before we kickstart."
On April 23, 2019, Li Ruifang, a third-generation prawn noodle hawker, took a picture with the couple.
Just a few years ago, Li took a picture in front of their stall.
When Li asked Goh if he had any plans to enter the hawker line again, he apparently said "errr see how...".
That sentiment was reiterated by his wife.
So what now?
Teo and her husband are in a good place right now.
She has far more manageable work hours, and her husband's job as a real estate consultant "provides much better income and more flexible time for the family".
But Teo did give her thoughts on what must be done to ensure hawker culture thrives in the future.
"They way I look at it, good local food in Singapore will continue to face extinction over time as older stalls retires.
Singapore Hawker trade is a sunset business and it will take a lot of efforts from everyone to bring it back to its former days.
The consumers, food bloggers/critics and government all will have a part to play."
Image from Teo's Instagram and Penang Kia Facebook
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