3 days ago
Hawkers say sales dropped after Chee Soon Juan wrongly shared their business closed, Lifestyle News
For 15 years, former engineer Christopher Lau, 72, and his wife, Christina Tan, 69, have been selling muffins, chicken pies and curry puffs from their humble hawker stall Bakes N Bites at Old Airport Road Food Centre.
While sales were "irregular", Christina told AsiaOne that they had several regular customers.
However, she said that business was severely affected after the Secretary-General of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) Chee Soon Juan shared a video on his social media discussing Singapore's "F&B crisis" on Sunday (May 25).
In the clip, he mentioned several eateries that had allegedly shuttered, including Bakes N Bites.
However, the elderly couple only found out about the news on Monday (May 26) after a friend, who is also in the F&B industry, alerted them to it.
"Upon hearing the news, I was totally shocked and sought advice from friends. They advised us to immediately post about the false news on Facebook," Christina recounted.
That same evening, the couple were advised to message Dr Chee to take down the video and they dropped him an email on Tuesday (May 27) at around 2am.
In the email seen by AsiaOne, Christopher pointed out that not only had the video incorrectly stated that Bakes N Bites was permanently closed, it also mentioned that the business was a cafe instead of a hawker stall.
The couple later received a response at around 2.45pm on May 27 from SDP's Head of Branding and Communications Min Cheong-Subramaniam, who shared that the original video has since been removed.
An amended version of the video, which doesn't reference Bakes N Bites, was also uploaded.
"We sincerely apologise for the confusion and distress caused. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us if you have any further questions or concerns," Min told the couple in the email.
In the amended video's caption, Dr Chee also apologised and said: "In an earlier version of this video, I had posted that Bakes N Bites had closed. This was an error. Bakes N Bites are still very much in operation. My apologies to the owners of the outlet for the error."
But the damage had already been done, the couple claim.
Christina shared that sales had taken a hit over the past few days.
"As we are closed on Monday, we never gave a thought on the impact, although we did receive calls from customers who had placed orders enquiring on the closure," she said.
On May 27, they served just two customers in the morning and made less than $10 in sales, which alarmed Christina.
"I was in tears but asked Christopher to keep me updated for the afternoon," Christina recounted, adding that business similarly remained slow on May 28 and they didn't have many customers.
Altogether, over the past two days, sales had dropped by more than 70 per cent, she told AsiaOne.
Prior to opening Bakes N Bites, Christopher was a former manufacturing engineer who pivoted to F&B after being retrenched at 55 years old. Christina would help him at the stall after her day job as an administrative role at a construction company.
The couple specialise in chilled muffins, chicken pies, curry puffs and brownies.
Address: 51 Old Airport Rd, #01-164 & 165, S390051
Opening hours: Tuesdays to Sundays, 11am to 8pm
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