Yishun Park Hawker Centre Has Been Suffering Since Its Grand Opening Last Sept

Nowadays, it’s hip to be in the hawker centre industry (if there’s such an industry): you’ll get lots of coverage from food blogs, hawkers would be seen as heroes (especially if they’re young) who’re preserving the hawker culture, and every new hawker centre is set to be the next big thing.

Well, at least that’s what I thought.

Yishun Park Hawker Centre, which successfully convinced us to write not one but two articles about it, looks to be one of the most lit places in Yishun. I mean, Yishun itself already has a reputation; put a new hawker centre there and Instagrammers would be more than willing to take a plane from Jurong just to visit this hipster place.

And when I say hipster, I literally meant it.

The hawker centre is managed by the people behind Timbre+, so I’ve a feeling that the hawker centre’s middle name is Hipster. Adding on, it has arcade and pinball machines, and even a large screen for screening of big matches like SAF FC vs Home United (still got these teams or not arh?).

And hear this: they even have an app.

The app will allow diners to make cashless payment, and even order through the app. You’re reading this on an app, so we know a thing or two about app development: it’s a very expensive venture (despite how simple it is – in fact, the simpler it is, the more expensive it is to develop!).

Now read this: even the tray return area has RFID technology.

Yishun Park Hawker Centre isn’t a hawker centre: it’s a spaceship built by NASA.

But more than six months after its grand opening in September last year, it seems like all the fancy technologies aren’t working.

According to reports, low footfall (i.e. the number of people coming in) is the key issue. As it’s in the middle of a residential estate, lunchtime on weekdays suffers.

I don’t know about you, but aren’t most hawker centres facing the same issue?

But anyways.

The situation is so bad, a dialogue was held by the hawkers, the management, Nee Soon Group Representation Constituency and the National Environment Agency.

The first issue raised was the alleged higher rental, compared to other hawker centres, as this is a NASA spaceship hawker centre.

The second issue? The app.

Turns out that it’s doing more harm than good: as there would be 10% discount if people pay via the app, that 10% is absorbed by the hawkers. Therefore, hawkers had to increase the prices of their foods to cover their cost.

Some people would be shocked at the high prices and not eat there.

So here’s a snapshot of what can allegedly happen: a customer comes in, sees that the prices are high, and realizes that downloading and using the app would make the price at least reasonable. But he’s lazy to do so (they have to download the app and even upload credits in), so he didn’t makan there at all.

Next, the tray return system. Patrons have to pay $0.50 for a tray and that amount will be refunded when they return the tray. That obviously didn’t go well with patrons.

But of course, these are alleged issues raised by the hawkers..

In other words, people still prefer the ah-gong-styled hawker centre than a NASA-spaceship-styled hawker centre.

To solve the problem, they would be offering free weekday lunchtime parking from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., which has started yesterday (25 April 2018). They will also work with Grab to offer discount codes (oh, does that mean…promo codes?!) to people going to the hawker centre.

Sheltered walkways will also be built, as the path to the centre is unsheltered, leading to even less patrons during rainy days.

Well, at least this time round, Yishun gets into the news for reasons not related to cats.

Now you know what Singaporeans are talking about today; do check back tomorrow for another piece of news of the day!