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He is single, an avid traveller, and looks much younger than his 53 years.
Photo from Uggli Muffins/FB
But second-generation hawker Anton Tan is already looking for a successor to his popular Uggli Muffins business.
Photo from Uggli Muffins/FB
When I first spoke to Tan, over the phone, he was in Johor Bahru.
Not that it's particularly surprising. The hawker-baker often posts photos of his travels on his business's Facebook page.
"Thank you so much for sponsoring my CNY23 trip," he wrote to his customers, tongue-in-cheek, in a February post about his trip to Jeju where he climbed its famous Mount Hallasan.
Scrolling down his feed, I find several other photos of his adventures: to Indonesia, Laos, even Kashmir.
This is perhaps one reason why he hopes to pass on his business.
"I can do a lot of things what, the world is so big," he explained. "I have all the education, I have all the travelling [experience]...I can do missionary work as well, I'm single."
Photo from Uggli Muffins/FB
Photo from Uggli Muffins/FB
From zichar to muffins
Tan is candid about his own life and upbringing. He is a hawker's son who inherited his father's Toa Payoh zichar stall when the latter passed away.
Back then, he was an engineering graduate who had no real F&B experience apart from weekends spent helping out at his parents' stall when he was young.
"People were still buying, people still queued, maybe because my father was on TV," he explained.
But the work was tough and the hours were long. "When I took over, I didn't know how to cook, I didn't know how to use the wok," he recalled.
"I was washing [dishes] on my own, till 2, 3am...then how?" he recalled. "I knew it was not sustainable. So I was looking for a product I could scale."
He experimented with various things — sushi and dumplings for instance — and finally, muffins. At first, he struggled with sales, selling as few as eight muffins a day.
But as he puts it, he owes a lot to the customers he inherited from his parents.
"We've been [at Toa Payoh] for so many years, so we have a lot of supporters. My parents were there for over 30 years, their whole lives. So people were supportive...even when I started out with muffins, they still bought."
"I call them 'second-generation supporters'," he quipped.
Keeping the old signage
20 years on, he has built his parents' zichar stall up into a popular bakery hawker, with a second, bigger outlet in Jalan Besar and a central kitchen.
The menu hasn't been the only change. While traditional walk-in customers still comprise most of his Toa Payoh customer base, his second outlet caters mostly to delivery and group buy orders — something which he had to learn about himself.
And he didn't stop there. "I just attended a TikTok class," he informed me, and showed me a clip of a video he made promoting his delivery service — which, he added, got 7,000 views.
@ugglimuffins #fyp #Viral #tiktoksg #jalanbesar #sgfoodies #HawkerFood #onlinefooddelivery #fooddeliveryservices #sgfood #sgfoodblogger ♬ original sound - ugglimuffins
In his new Jalan Besar outlet, he's also come up with a few unusual programmes: a limited-time-only "Pay what you like" opening promotion; and its quirky (and still ongoing) sequel, "Pay what you strike", featuring a dart board.
Photo from Uggli Muffins/FB
Photo from Uggli Muffins/FB
But he has not forgotten about his roots.
While the business has officially been rechristened "Uggli Muffins" — a cheeky reference to the signature muffins' crusty, rather messy look — the Toa Payoh stall still contains nostalgic elements harkening to its zichar origins.
"When I first [changed the business] to muffins, my mother had one request, to keep the signboard," Tan explained.
"It's still there," he added. "Which is good, lah...it's really heritage."
Photo via Uggli Muffins/FB
When I head down to the stall, it's closed without warning. (A quirk made only possible with success. Tan later informs me that his staff took the day off to spend with his baby.)
I hang around for a while longer, hoping for a miraculous re-opening. As I wait, I spot a few other customers turn up, stare sadly at the shuttered storefront, and eventually slink off empty-handed.
Meanwhile, a handwritten hiring ad on a nearby pillar declares, unabashedly: "We admit we are freaking desperate!"
Starting the search
But why now, exactly? After all, 53 is hardly retirement age.
When I meet him in real life, he seems even younger than his already-youthful photos — his face barely lined, his manner animated and exuberant.
"I would say that it is time, lah. It is time," he said.
"I'm not as hungry as before. I've proven what I wanted to do, but this business has so much potential. It would be a waste just to stop it like that...so I'm looking for someone with much more hunger."
With no wife, and no children to take over the business, he is starting his potentially long-drawn search sooner rather than later.
"My birthday is in a few days, maybe I feel a bit emotional as well...I'm this age, I'm single. I've done my part, I've come from nothing to something.
So what else y'all want me to do? Y'all want me to work until 70, 80 years old?"
"And most importantly, I'm single. I don't know what the hell I'm working so hard for," he laughed.
While he does have a reliable and "super nice" staff member (who he affectionately calls "young boss"), the employee's focus is on family, and he has no wish to run more than a single outlet.
"But there is so much potential in this business," he said, adding that the ideal successor would take Uggli Muffins to the next level — opening more outlets, doing more to build the brand, even starting a franchise. He feels it "will be a waste" if there's no one to carry on the business.
That's not to say that he intends to wash his hands of this project entirely.
"I still can be involved, I still got some energy," he told me. "Probably I have to be involved lah. It's not so easy just to say bye-bye...this is my baby for 20 years."
A life outside work
Plus, Tan said, with some measure of wistfulness, he would like the time to pursue all his other interests: he used to run more frequently, but hasn't had time for it lately.
And he has plenty of friends, all of whom he hopes to meet up with more often.
"Hawkers, we bring you food at an affordable rate," he explained. "But we are out of touch, because of our environment...you are trapped in your little hole."
"To be honest, I'm out of touch also," he admitted, adding that his friends have commented about it as well.
"Actually one of them was complaining about me, saying 'eh, you bloody hawker uncle leh'."
Still, he doesn't have any concrete plans. I asked him, a few times, if he has any immediate things he hopes to do — any countries to visit, or any skills to pick up, for instance — but his answers were always vague.
"I don't know," he said.
"I mean, life is hard to say what. How the fish did I get into the bakery [business], I also don't know. God's will, lor."
While he never explicitly says it, I get the sense that Tan has given up rather more than he'd have liked while building his business. Not regret, exactly, but perhaps just a renewed awareness of his own mortality. After all, there's no currency quite as valuable as time.
53 isn't retirement age, but perhaps that's the point. He's still healthy and full of energy — a good age to start spending more time on pursuits outside of work. His friends, his interests, his travel.
Photo via Uggli Muffins/FB
The next day, I present my family with Tan's parting gift — a tiramisu, only slightly mangled from my hour-long bus journey.
"Looks very 'hawker'," my sister comments, eyeing its nondescript plastic container with some doubt.
"Maybe it'll taste 'hawker' too. That's good, right?" my brother chimes in hopefully.
Despite their skepticism, the tiramisu has barely left their forks before my family declares it a win. "Wah, I haven't had such good tiramisu in so long," my mum says.
I take a bite myself. Like his muffins, and probably like his parents' zichar before him, there is no finesse to the presentation, no Instagram-friendliness. It's value-for-money and unpretentious, hawker food through and through.
And yet, lopsided layers and messy cocoa powder aside, it's a delicious cake: light and creamy, with plenty of liqueur and subtle sweetness.
Photo for reference. The actual tiramisu was devoured too quickly for photos.
As I savour the dessert, I hope that Tan finds a worthy successor. And I hope that whoever he finds and whatever they choose to do, that they'll keep that easy, down-to-earth "hawker" spirit in both their business and bakes.
And maybe the signboard too.
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Firsthand is a new content pillar by Mothership, featuring in-depth stories about people and their issues.
Top image via Uggli Muffins/FB