Less than two years after opening at his beer garden Playground in a Kallang industrial canteen, Ben Yeo has closed his izakaya-style hawker stall SG Umami.
It offered fusion prawn noodles, thin-crust pizzas, and small sharing plates such as Sake Lala. According to Ben, the reason for the stall’s closure was its struggle to maintain consistency.
“Some friends and customers gave me feedback that the pizzas tasted different or were not as good as before. Our pizzas are handmade and even though I have an SOP for making it, we could not maintain the quality that I want ’cos our staff kept changing. Like many F&B businesses, we face manpower shortage,” lamented the 44-year-old actor.
He considered using frozen dough from a supplier instead of making it from scratch. “But the pizzas still have to be hand-stretched. Rather than compromise on the quality, I decided to shut the stall,” said Ben. It was a difficult decision for him, as he shared that the concept was his “baby”.
The closure was not a financial loss for him. “The business was doing okay. We did not lose money,” he explained. But he has also shuttered his Korean fusion lok lok stall Geon Bae, which used to occupy the stall space next to SG Umami and was opened by the same partners.