S'porean woman opens home-based banh mi business after landlord doubles rent, goes viral on TikTok

After her landlord doubled her stall rental, a woman decided to close down her Vietnamese hawker stall in Teck Whye — and take her business home instead.

Hue Thi Banh, who is married to a Singaporean and has two kids, now sells banh mi out of her four-room HDB flat at Choa Chu Kang.

Customers come from as far as Tampines to buy her banh mi, waiting up to an hour during peak periods, the 47-year-old told Shin Min Daily News.

One customer said he'd driven 50 minutes to try the baguette sandwiches.

A S$3,000 investment

Hue settled down in Singapore in 2009, and worked at Vietnamese restaurants for about a decade before opening her own stall.

She is now a Singapore citizen.

But disagreements with her landlord brought her endeavour to an end.

She then opened Hue Banh Mi at her flat at 807C Choa Chua Kang Avenue 1,  after a S$3,000 investment on equipment.

The plan was to sell the equipment if the business didn't take off.

Worries and obstacles

Making the switch wasn't an easy decision though.

One of her worries was that the dish, a specialty from her hometown in Vietnam, would not appeal to the Singaporean palate.

She had to experiment to come up with a recipe that is both authentic and palatable to local tastebuds.

Preparing the banh mi is also a painstaking process that keeps her up as late as 3am at times.

But business picked up after a customer posted a video of the home-based business, and it went viral, she added.

The video has since racked up over 40,000 likes on TikTok.

"We didn't expect that after over a year, the business is doing quite okay. On weekends we are able to sell up to 60 sandwiches a day," she said.

Top image from Google Maps