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After working as an air stewardess for only a year and losing her job during the pandemic, a 25-year-old Singaporean woman started an online baking business, worked tirelessly, and grew it into a physical cafe -- and business is booming.

The cafe owner, Chanel Li, spoke to Shin Min Daily News about her culinary journey so far.

Became air stewardess after graduating from poly

Li said she became an air stewardess in 2019 after graduating from polytechnic.

However, one year later, the pandemic struck, and she had no choice but to leave the airline industry.

She said: “During the pandemic, I was at home with nothing to do, so I started baking pastries for my friends and family, and it was them who encouraged me to start a business, which led to me setting up an Instagram page.”

Started to bake

Li said she has enjoyed baking since young, and after starting her business, she was surprised by the volume of orders that came in, and slowly even began to recognise regular customers.

She added: “It was just a temporary thing – I was still planning on returning as an air stewardess – until Lunar New Year 2022, when I came up with Orh Nee Tarts as a new year special."

"When I released the product, I received around 2,000 orders very quickly.”

To cope with the huge demand and customers complaining they couldn’t get an order in, Li made the choice to rent a unit in Tai Seng and establish a central kitchen.

She spent around S$30,000 buying equipment and hiring people, devoting herself to her baking enterprise.

She said: “In 2022, even the central kitchen wasn’t enough, and I wanted to give customers the option of dining in, so I invested S$80,000 of my savings and set up Café Lilac by Whisking Bakes in Lavender.”

Sales in the five-figure range

Li revealed that her monthly salary as an stewardess back then was around S$3,000, but now, after setting up her own café, her monthly sales are in the five-figure range.

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Cafe Lilac by Whisking Bakes (@whiskingbakes)

Li joked that even though business is good, her cafe was like a child since she needs to keep a constant eye on it, only being able to rest one or two days every few months.

She said: “When it’s extra busy, sometimes we even end up arranging the chairs into beds to spend the night, and then get up the next day to resume work.”

A cafe romance

Chanel said her boyfriend, whom she has been dating since secondary school, was with her every step of the process, and supported her becoming an entrepreneur.

She revealed that even when her business was solely online, on their weekly deliveries, as long as her boyfriend had time, he would drive together with her to deliver the pastries, sometimes visiting 20 places in a single day.

During Lunar New Year, when the cafe was extra busy, her boyfriend would also help out and even accompany her in sleeping over in the space.

However, despite being her own boss now, Chanel does miss being an air stewardess.

She also said: “Wherever I go now, I’ll always look at how other people work and manage things, and see if there’s anything I can emulate and improve on.”

She also said, once she went to Korea on holiday, she received a call from one of her employees for help on managing an angry customer.

It took an hour for her to placate the customer.

Top photos courtesy of Chanel Li Cafe Lilac's Instagram