He grew up as daddy’s assistant, now he’s his own boss

SINGAPORE — He grew up serving customers at his father’s chicken rice shop when he was in primary school. He did not expect that he would grow up to become a stall owner himself.

Mr Leow Kok Yee, 34, the owner of Day Night Herbal Soup at Our Tampines Hub, said that his entire family, even his grandparents, helped out at his father’s stall.

“My family, my grandparents would all help out at the stall. I helped out during the holidays,” he said.

Describing the hawker centres then, Mr Leow said it was “cramped” and “dirtier” compared to the hawker centres of today.

“Hawker stalls in the past are different from now, where it is self-service. I would have to remember who ordered what and sat where,” he said.

Mr Leow had left his job of almost a decade as a real estate agent to join the trade.

Instead of taking over his father’s business, he wanted to try running his own stall first.

“He (my father) is doing his own thing and I want to do my own thing. I wanted to go into the industry because I have a bit of passion and I have seen them doing this for so long, I know what the trade is like.”

.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }

Mr Leow plans to help his father out after gaining more experience with his own stall.

But he has been doing well on his own, too. Mr Leow has been selected as one of the recipients of the National Environment Agency’s (NEA) Promising New Hawker Award.

The award is given out to aspiring hawkers who have participated in the NEA’s Incubation Stall Programme, or equivalent programmes at the new hawker centres operated by socially-conscious enterprises.

Mr Leow said that the programme had helped him as a budding, new hawker. “The stress level for starting out is lower because the capital (required) is not so hefty. There was also mentorship programmes and it made us more confident of running the business.”

But he faces the same challenges as other hawkers, like the fluctuating price of ingredients.

Mr Leow said: “We can’t control the prices because suppliers need to make a profit, too. We either accept it or find a new supplier. Once they increase their prices, we also need to increase our prices to match it but you can’t increase it too exorbitantly as well.”

Sometimes he misses his old job, where the working environment was more comfortable, he admitted. “As a real estate agent, I dressed up nicely, I had flexible working hours and I drove around looking for nice houses. I had my own time and freedom, I didn’t have to stay in a spot,” he said.

“Working as a hawker, we have to stay in a spot for over 10 hours. You can’t move around much so it is a totally different environment,” he said.

But the job is rewarding and Mr Leow’s advice to aspiring or young hawkers is to be patient.

“When you start a business, you want to see results but when you don’t see the results, you may start to feel demoralised and become less enthusiastic,” he said. “But if you hold on, you might see results, then you can carry on and become more innovative with the dishes.”