15 Cafes In Singapore That Closed In 2015 – Sorry To Say Goodbye

“What? Closed? So fast!” Such is the fate of many new cafes in Singapore, especially for recent entrants to the industry.

The reasons given are similar – high rental, increasing cost, lack of manpower, diminishing customers.

Can I add two more? The proliferation of shops selling similar things, especially when a food becomes trendy. It is not uncommon to see shops offering Korean Bingsu (when they know nothing about it), milkshakes and Shibuya Toasts.

But once the food is not hip anymore, what happens?

I once asked a cafe what their specialty was. The reply, “Egg ben, waffles, artisanal coffee.” All right. You get what I mean.

There could be other personal reasons, or franchise/partnership disagreements we may not know of.

Loysel’s Toy – Kampong Bugis
Possible reasons: To re-focus operations at Chye Seng Huat perhaps. Plus, the group is doing quite well in Malaysia.

Spanish Doughnuts – Orchard Central
Possible reasons: Issues with the franchisor

Aoyama Collaborative – Chun Tin Road
Possible reasons: Almost non-existent social media publicity. Several mistakes that could turn off the potential customers. When we visited (a few times), many signature items were not ready.

Anythingz Café – Tyrwhitt Road
Possible reasons: Chye Seng Huat is opposite. (Oh yeah, one period of time, words with the ‘z’ is very popular. Remember “Boomz?!”

Maison De The – Thomson V2
Possible reasons: The café closed after just one month in operation, claiming that its partner(s) is a “bad business man without ethics”.

Frozen – Clementi
Possible reasons: Perhaps Frozen couldn’t take the heat from the bingsu competition, and decided to let it go… On another note, selling something trendy based on a HIT movie may not be the best idea, if food itself is not substantial.

Tamper & Co (previously known as La’Coffee) – Rangoon Road
Possible reasons: Actually, I liked their kopi and initial concept, but wish they would not flip-flop on their prices (almost doubling in a single week) and opening hours, and be really ready before they open shop.

Also, a previous mishandling of photos – using a baker’s photos as their Facebook cover pic without rightfully crediting, escalated on social media and gave them a bad rep.

Beegurt – Thomson V2
Possible reasons: The first in Singapore to combine two trendy items – frozen yogurt and raw honeycomb. But trends come and go.

Honeycomb – Bali Lane
Possible reasons: One of the first casualties of the dipping softserve craze. They did quickly turn it around to call it Brother Bird.

Flea Away – Dunlop Street
Possible reasons: I liked them – they were fun and quirky. But perhaps not enough foot traffic at Dunlop Street, plus inaccessibility.

Rouse – Dunlop Street
Possible reasons: Quite a popular café, so this came as a surprise. Owners said they “are embarking on a new personal journey.” Also, there are just too many new cafes along Dunlop Street itself (OMB, Malayan Council).

The Dispensary – Tiong Bahru
Possible reasons: Obviously Tiong Bahru has become quite over-crowded. And the weird thing is, somebody got their franchise to open a space at Short Street (also zero publicity).

And by the way, I DID want to write about them previously, as in I already paid for my meals and wanted some information about the café.

Their PR’s reply was (which I filed under my archives of “Learning Lessons”): “We truly appreciate your interest and kindness in wanting to write about The Dispensary. Currently, we are planning our reach out strategy more towards the printed media platforms and thus would like to work with you in due course and maybe would like to give it a miss this time round.”

Kisses Bakery – Tiong Bahru
Possible reasons: I think It’s the rental.

Audacious Cakery – Everton Park
Possible reasons: A pity, as they serve really good bakes. Everton Park is kind of low in foot traffic during most of the days.

Wednesday Café – Tanjong Katong
Possible reasons: The pay-per-hour café concept, didn’t quite work out.

*This post originally appeared on danielfooddiary.com