Couple Behind TikTok-Viral Stall Not Your Grandpa’s Grill Breaks Up, Closes Shop After 10 Months
Last November, western food hawker stall Not Your Grandpa’s Grill opened to some social media hype, after a video posted by TikToker Josie Lee (@gingerbunnie), 26, went viral online. At the time, the post, - cheekily titled “Gen Z realtor gf, hawker “koi fish tattoo” beng bf” - had garnered over 229K views on TikTok, and the stall’s owner, Matthew Lim, 36, told 8days.sg that it had attracted customers to come down and try his food.
But less than a year in, Not Your Grandpa’s Grill quietly shut down its Chinatown Complex stall, which has now been replaced by yet another western hawker joint named HELLO ! 鸡排 (ji pai).
Josie’s viral posts about the stall have also been taken down from her TikTok account. The couple formerly told 8days.sg that they had met back in 2017 on a GrabHitch ride, where Matthew was the driver.
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Couple “not in contact anymore”
When we reached out to Josie, a realtor who helped out part-time at Matthew’s stall, the 26-year-old tells us that she has stopped helping out with the biz. “We’re not in contact anymore, and I’m focusing on real estate full-time now,” she says. Meanwhile, Matthew declined to comment on the situation.
TikTok hype died down in “two to three months”
However, the towkay tells us that he shut down his Chinatown stall as it wasn’t as profitable as he’d hoped. “I closed the stall down as the profit that I was getting from [the Chinatown stall] was not really up to my expectations,” he says, though he clarifies that he managed to make a small profit of around $10 to $15K during his almost one-year run.
Matthew plans to relocate stall, but his ex says she doubts he’ll do it
Matthew says he’s looking for a new spot to continue his business. “I’m currently looking at setting up a stall at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) as it’s nearer to where I’m living. But it’s still in the planning stages, so there’s no confirmation,” he shares.
Josie tells 8days.sg separately that she doubts the stall relocation will happen, because “Matthew is going to serve time soon” (she declines to share more details on record). In our previous interview with Matthew last year, he told us that he had served time in prison for an undisclosed crime prior to starting his hawker biz.
8days.sg’s subsequent calls to Matthew to confirm Josie’s disclosure were left unanswered.
Photos: Aik Chen
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