Chinatown Hawker Stall Being Rented Out for Mere $11 a Month Selling Indian Food

When you think of Singaporean food, one kind of place comes to mind.

Hawker centres.

With how many hawker stalls there are in Singapore, you’d think opening one is pretty easy right?

Wrong.

There is an extremely lengthy process to go through, including having to bid for a stall.

Then, you still have to count in other expenses like table-cleaning fees service and conservancy charges for the first month.

If you don’t plan well, your savings are in for a massive pain.

However, today is the reverse, as we have a hawker story about a massive gain.

$11 Per Month

This is like the hawker centre equivalent of a jackpot.

Apparently, one hawker stall in Chinatown managed to win the bid to rent out their stall for only $11 a month, Lianhe Zaobao reported.

Yeah, you’re not hallucinating.

That’s less than the amount you pay for certain cafe foods.

The stall will be located at Chinatown Complex.

In fact, if you look at the list of successful tenders in September that is released by The National Environment Agency (NEA), the next lowest rent for stalls in the complex is $50.

A reporter who visited the hawker centre on 10 Nov noted that stalls 155 and 150 were for the $11 bid and $50 bid ones respectively, which is also reflected in the NEA report.

Stall Will Sell Indian Food

However, there might be some possible competition.

Both stalls will be operated by Chinese vendors (their names are on the list of successful tenderers) and both will be selling Indian Food.

The chairman of the Chinatown Complex Hawkers’ Association has also confirmed that $11 is the lowest winning bid for the hawker centre this year.

He says that there are proportionally less Indian and Malay food stalls, and the diversity is welcomed.

Still, $11 is not the lowest recorded price of all time.

Lianhe Wanbao mentioned that in previous reports, it was shown that two stalls at Chinatown Complex in 2018 had won bids of $5 and $10 a month.

One of the few times where having less is more.

Closed Last Year

This isn’t actually a new stall.

Another vendor mentioned that it used to sell Indonesian food, and closed around the middle of 2019.

In fact, he said that the stall was used to film “Hawker Academy” at one point.

However, filming on the show stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

I mean I guess it’s no Joe Biden visiting it, but that’s still a pretty good achievement.

The same vendor also said that most stalls in the same row as the $11-bid stall served Indian, Malay and halal food.

It has been speculated that the authorities wanted to diversify the types of food served in the hawker centre.

Time to bring your Muslim friends over soon.

But between this and the upcoming places Kedai Kopi in Clementi, you’ll be spoilt for choice.

Featured Image: Hit1912 / Shutterstock.com (Image is for illustration purpose only)