“Maybe we were too ambitious,” he said as he reflected on the restaurant’s misstep in 2021 – the year Singapore started recovering from the pandemic and Chinese New Year gatherings shrunk. Considering the restaurant received 232 orders for the festivities, they should have started the year off right. Instead, a series of unfortunate events unfolded.
“The delivery men swarmed into the restaurant once the orders were ready, and all our safe distancing measures flew out of the window. I left my post in the kitchen to do crowd control, which turned out to be the biggest mistake.”
Long story short, chaos ensued and about a third of the orders went unfulfilled. That evening, seventy odd families stared at the empty spot on the table where their Poon Choi should have been.
“I thought: Oh no! People weren’t getting their reunion dinners – that wouldn’t do. Our phone rang furiously and none of my female employees dared to answer.”
The restaurant made the headlines on the second day of Chinese New Year, which Lai spent calling every customer personally to apologise. Additionally, he offered to refund their deposits and deliver their rightful orders anytime during the festive season at no charge.
“My losses and stress levels were through the roof that year, but there was no other way out. We had to make it up to our customers,” he recounted.
THE ROAD AHEAD
Since Hakka food is in demand, why aren’t there more like Plum Village Hakka Restaurant? Lai alludes to the fact that Hakka cuisine, which features simple ingredients his ancestors could source on the hilltops, is not a lucrative business.