S'porean woman, 33, opens mini mart in Ang Mo Kio, stocks retro goodies to honour grandma & childhood memories

When I think of void deck mini marts, what comes to mind is a chain brand or a quaint shop that’s run by an elderly couple who started the business ages ago.

Which is why Huat Huat Mini Mart appeared to defy expectations.

The convenience store, tucked away under Block 608 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5, was started by a young 33-year-old.

Like many younger folks, she documents her journey on TikTok.

One month in

I arranged to meet the owner, Tan Sheau Jing, who goes by SJ, to find out more about her provisions business and how she got into it.

She greeted me cheerfully at 8am on a Thursday while I was still rousing up for the day.

As we moved from a nearby coffee shop to her mini mart, which was right next door, she got right to opening her store.

She raised the shutters, turned on the lights, unlocked the fridges and rolled several retail racks into place outside the shop.

She paused only to quip about the crate of green and under-ripe bananas she received from a supplier.

It was not the first time, she said, but it was part and parcel of supplier management.

Everything else ran like clockwork. Nothing betrayed the fact that SJ had been running Huat Huat Mini Mart for only a little over a month.

After the initial rush of setting up, a calm set in. Huat Huat was now ready for its first customer of the day.

SJ told me it took a “village” to open Huat Huat, with her family pitching in time and labour to help set things up.

“It took us about one to two months to get things sorted out,” SJ recalled.

Although she has experience running an F&B place, a mini mart is a whole different ball game.

In total, Huat Huat Mini Mart stocks over 2,000 unique items, each with their own expiry date that needs to be tracked and managed.

These items come from almost 60 suppliers.

“So, having to deal with all these small things, small but necessary things, I think it’s where the tedious work comes in. And also finding the right supplier so that you can have the correct price point to serve the needs of the neighbourhood,” she explained.

Why mini mart?

The 33-year-old’s first career was in customer service in the travel industry, where she spent eight years.

She also dabbled in e-commerce, before going on to manage an F&B establishment with her business partners.

All these only made running a void deck mini mart stand out in her resume.

“Opening a mini mart has a very personal meaning for me,” SJ replied when I asked her why she decided to join the trade.

For one, she used to to play pretend as a cashier when she was young.

Hearing the clanking of the cash register as it opens is something like a “childhood dream” for her, SJ said while excitedly toying with the point-of-sale machine.

The digital touchscreen which replaced the click-clack of mechanical buttons made it less satisfying, but the popping of the cash tray still scratched an itch.

Grandma's resilience

The more profound motivation, however, was memories with her 93-year-old grandmother.

Growing up, SJ’s grandmother spent a great deal of time and effort caring for her and her cousins while their parents were at work.

Visiting a mini mart was part of that childhood.

As with all grandparents, kids got away with more when with them.

With grandma, sweet treats like ice pops made the day for young SJ and her cousins.

But it was grandma’s resilience that made a lasting impression on her.

“She did multiple jobs when she was younger, raising her six kids,” SJ recounted.

Grandpa was, as SJ described it, “pretty absent”.

“So my grandmother had to carry the whole family,” she said.

To keep the family going, grandma had to be entrepreneurial.

One of grandma’s endeavours was selling love letters and kuehs, which SJ and her cousins would pitch in to bake as helpers.

She also made a living washing clothes and being a seamstress.

“Taking care of six kids is not easy. And apart from that, she still has to do all sorts of things. And she doesn’t complain. She just does it wholeheartedly, because she knows it’s for survival,” SJ remarked.

Besides resilience, SJ knows grandma for her altruism.

“She really just loved us in the best way that she could then,” she added.

Huat Huat's registered business name is named after SJ's grandma.

You can find SJ’s childhood memories with her grandma on the shelves of Huat Huat, among the 2,000-odd items.

SJ gave me a tour down the aisles of these memories, picking up classic gem biscuits in a tin box, ice pops from the refrigerator and a variety of candies.

These “retro” goodies sat alongside modern toys, like Pokémon cards and squishies.

"So when I see actually a lot of kids coming with their grandparents, and how the grandparents are like, 'buy lah, buy lah', it reminds me of my grandmother," SJ said.

SJ's 93-year-old grandma doesn’t cook for the family on the weekends like she used to, but the cousins still gather at her place each Saturday nonetheless.

Sitting behind the entrance of the convenience store by the cash register, surrounded by hints of her childhood and time spent with grandma and her cousins, I asked SJ what was something she would want to tell the elderly woman.

Appearing to fight back tears, SJ said,

“I hope I have made her proud, and that she realised that she raised a granddaughter that encapsulates her best attributes. She has been through a lot in her life, but she has never backed down from any challenge or whatever life throws at her. Maybe in her circumstances then, she didn’t have the option to say, ‘I quit’.

I hope she realises the influence she has on me.”

Appreciating the 'small' things in life

On top of all this, SJ also said it felt like the “right season” for such a venture.

“After you have experienced all the hustle and bustle, although this is also a hustle, it allows you to appreciate a lot of the small things,” she said.

With Huat Huat, SJ said she could slow down and go “back to basics”.

“I really enjoy this process, like talking to the neighbours and talking to the elderly people with [a] wealth of life experience to share,” she elaborated.

One memorable interactions was when schoolchildren visited Huat Huat with a S$5 note to split between them.

“So when the kids come, it’s very cute. Then they will say, for example, I have S$5. So let’s share and see what we can buy,” she recounted.

“They will actually collaborate and then do budgeting together to see how they can maximise the S$5 to get as many sweets or drinks out of the S$5.”

The other involved an elderly man who spoke only dialect, putting SJ’s language skills to the test.

During our interview, we also had to pause a handful of times for SJ to attend to customers.

“Do you have coconut shavings? For rendang?” One uncle asked SJ.

The uncle lived right above in Block 608, he told me.

Seeing that the uncle was on a personal mobility aid which made entering the store inconvenient, SJ hurried to the back to help him locate the ingredient.

Turns out, Huat Huat did not yet carry the product.

“Ok, you show me what you are looking for, I stock for you,” SJ told him.

In another instance, an auntie who strolled by paused to take home a watermelon.

“Good. Now I don’t have to go all the way to the market,” she commented as she headed off.

“For the elderly, I think the heavy lifting is the concern,” she said, adding that convenience is what they appreciate.

More than just business

With the time and commitment SJ has put into the mini mart, you might be surprised to know that she is still juggling that with managing her F&B business.

When SJ isn’t minding the store, an experienced full-time staff helps run the show.

When I asked SJ what her plans or aspirations were for the mini mart, she told me that expansion was something she would definitely explore, but it was still too early for that.

Above all, she hopes Huat Huat will be able to serve the needs of the community in more ways than one.

Rather than just being a space of convenience, SJ hopes that bonds — communal, friendship and familial — will blossom at Huat Huat, much like how mini mart visits became formative of the days spent with her grandma and cousins.

"I hope that this will be a place for families to create bonding time," SJ shared.

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Mothership (@mothershipsg)