Daughter Pumps In $10K To Fund ‘Fickle-Minded’ Fishball Mee Hawker Parents’ 4th Stall Relocation
Over the past few months, you may have read about the “fickle-minded” (in their daughter’s words) senior hawkers and their stall Teck Hin Fishball Noodle’s constant relocations. Mr and Mrs Tan Hay Yam, aged 76 and 70, have relocated their 49-year-old business four times in the past six months, the most recent incident due to a spat with their previous kopitiam’s manager in Yishun over their inability to pay rent.
Prior to this, the elderly hawkers relocated from the soon-to-be-demolished Bukit Timah Food Centre to Commonwealth Drive, then to a short-lived location near Kim Keat (which they only operated at for three days), before landing on their previous Yishun unit, which alas, didn’t last more than two months. Now, they’ve made their fourth – and hopefully final move – to a Food Tyrant Coffeeshop (yes, that’s really its name) in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4.
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Mr and Mrs Tan at their previous Yishun stall
Turned down cheaper rent at Admiralty in favour of AMK with better footfall
Last month, their daughter Eugenia Lim, 46, told 8days.sg that her parents were looking to relocate to a kopitiam at Admiralty, after an 8days.sg reader reached out to them and offered a stall at her father’s coffee shop. At the time, Eugenia had told us that the move would cost them about $5K, but that the rental there would be around “40 percent” cheaper than at their Yishun stall, which cost $2.3K a month. The coffee shop owner had also offered to waive the stall’s rental deposit.
However, she now informs us that they’ve decided on a more central location at Ang Mo Kio instead. “Both landlords agreed to provide us with a lower rental rate to facilitate our start. However, after carefully weighing the pros and cons, we found the AMK location to be more advantageous. The benefits include stable utility costs, and the coffee shop owner has already arranged a noodle station, saving us the expense of custom-building one,” she explains.
Daughter has taken charge of biz, invested $10K to help parents
In the past month, Eugenia – who works as a home-based baker – has upped her involvement in her parent’s biz, despite initially telling us that she had no plans to take over Teck Hin as she wanted to prioritise her children.
Why did she change her mind? “Because they die die want to start another stall, so I [told them] that their current management style cannot succeed. I laid down my rules that marketing [of the biz] has to be done, and that the price of the food has to go up. Since I’m forking out the money, I have to run it my way,” she says. With the price adjustments, the noodles now cost 50 cents more, at $5 instead of $4.50 for the regular sized bowl, and $6 instead of $5.50 for large.
“More hopeful” about Ang Mo Kio location
Presently, Teck Hin’s AMK stall is in its soft launch phase, and Eugenia predicts that business will only pick up after she changes the shop’s signage. “We are now operating under the [previous tenant’s] dim sum signage, so business is slow. But I’m putting up a new signboard soon,” she shares.
Nonetheless, Eugenia says that she’s “more hopeful” about the Ang Mo Kio stall, because there’s higher footfall here due to its close proximity to Mayflower MRT station nearby.
Teck Hin Fishball Noodle is at #01-526 Food Tyrant Coffeeshop, Blk 159 Ang Mo Kio Ave 4, S560159. Open daily 7am - 3pm. More info via Facebook.
Photos: Instagram/Jamietan04, Glyn Seah, Eugenia Lim
No part of this story or photos can be reproduced without permission from 8days.sg.
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