The story of Lot 8
From Marketing Man to Laksa Man
When I turned 50 in 2016, I attended a school reunion in Singapore. It was a gathering for those born in 1966. Some were older. Some were gone. It was a moving occasion for many of us, after so many, many years.
When I came back to Australia, I noticed that something changed. I had been working in Marketing since I left the army in 1988. Mostly out of necessity, because that was all I could do.
28 years is a long time, and I was tired of corporate life.
Around that time, we had been doing some home-cooking and catering to our friends in the village. A fellow villager set up a pop-up takeaway in the carpark and invited us to join her. I thought, why not? It was the first step towards a new adventure.
The back story
I didn’t always like to cook. In Singapore, good food is incredibly affordable and accessible, learning to cook wasn’t mainstream. It was after we moved to Adelaide, Australia that I started cooking.
You see, I love to eat. And I missed our Singapore food so much. When we first arrived, there were very few options in terms of Chinese food, much less Singapore.
The traditional Chinese restaurant, evolved to accommodate the Aussie taste buds, was often too sweet or too “gluggy”. Names like Phoenix Court and Dragon Palace suggest that they’re not really Chinese, Chinese.
And the 144-item menu: Mongolian Beef, Pad Thai, Satay Chicken, Singapore Noodles, Mee Goreng…I remember walking into a restaurant near the city and ordering a Mee Goreng.
It was not Mee Goreng.
So I started trying to create some of these dishes at home. Fried Carrot Cake and Hainanese Chicken Rice took the longest. I can’t remember how many rounds of failures before I finally knock out decent versions of both.
By the time we moved into the village, I was quite competent and was confident enough to invite friends over for dinner. Mostly to show off.
I have included the links to the recipes here if you would like to try them out. https://tanfrancis.substack.com/s/food-stories
Our friends would say, “Wow! That’s amazing! You should open a restaurant!”
Around that time, we had a bit of pocket change sitting around and we were wondering what we should do with it. It wasn’t much, so options were really limited. We had seen by then how quickly the Australian dollar was losing value, so we wanted to protect that little we had.
We eventually bought a small 200 sq. meter commercial lot at the entrance of the village where we lived. Like I said, it was little.
Let’s build a restaurant!
When I returned from my reunion in Singapore, we decided that my wife and I would switch roles. She will work full time (to bring home the bacon and beer) while I will be the “stay-at-home” dad. The boys had her when they were growing up, and it was fabulous for them. Now that they’re preteens, I would take on the parenting role until they are no longer teenagers.
I didn’t want to just do nothing after 50. So, we decided on an experiment to start a family restaurant business. I have had no experience working in a commercial kitchen. My wife thought it would be good for me to do something different, and we will do this as a family. It would be an opportunity to learn and grow.
We took another loan to build the restaurant. We thought about the name but couldn’t quite decide. We definitely didn’t want to call it Golden Phoenix Chinese Restaurant.
As we were building it, we often refer to it as Lot 8, which is the lot number for the block. Every time we need to meet with trades or Nick the Builder, we would say, “Let’s meet at Lot 8.”
So we called it Lot 8.
The closest name was The Singapore Kitchen but realised that down the road, should we sell it or rent it out, it would become a bit of a problem to rename it.
Lot 8 was generic, and from a marketing point of view, a very successful Singapore Kitchen would be a problem for a Greek Café.
On 19 December 2018, we opened for business.
Working at the front and living at the back
We had also moved into the back of Lot 8. We designed the building with a commercial kitchen in the front, and a 2-bedroom unit at the back. And a very expensive and noise-proof firewall in between. Wouldn’t it be fun, living so near to work?
I didn’t hire any staff. It would be a one-man show, basically. Our two boys, 14 and 11, would help during service and earn their weekly allowance. We’re only open for dinner from Wednesday to Friday.
I learned as I went along.
摸着石头过河
“Crossing the river by feeling the stones.” - Deng Xiaoping
This popular Chinese saying by Deng Xiaoping is translated as “crossing the river by feeling the stones.” It is a cultural attitude towards risk and progress. Since not all the stones are visible, you feel your way forward. Adjusting, experimenting, adapting.
I have to say that this has been my approach to starting the restaurant business.
We were really fortunate to have had the support of the village and the customers living in the neighbourhood. Some customers come every week for years. Some more often.
I guess we were, in every sense, a local family business.
Our business grew substantially. On some days, we had customers waiting for more than an hour. We sold out on some days even after customers called in to order. It was chaotic on some days.
We always made it a point to make it up. I remember several customers who ordered takeaway, but my son had forgotten to write it down so that when they arrived to pick, we were sold out. It was embarrassing.
Our “policy” was to arrange for a complementary meal on another day. And we will throw in additional entrees. If a customer doesn’t like their food, we will refund. No questions asked. If they claim they were charged twice, we will refund. No questions asked. If they wanted a free meal, we would give them a free meal. No questions asked.
And then COVID came
Like many, we didn’t quite feel the impact initially. We heard it in the news around February 2020, but it wasn’t until March that the restrictions and lockdowns began. Everyone worked from home, and restaurants could only do takeaway.
I didn’t think too much of it, but it turned out to be the best period of our entire 5-year operation. People could not eat out, only takeaway. And the government was giving out money like nobody’s business, and some of it ended up for takeaways.
When doing only takeaway, we had little to wash up. We didn’t have to stay open while we waited for customers to leave long after closing time.
For me, the workday ended when I put the day’s trash out. It was the last thing I did around midnight after we close shop at 9pm. During Covid, I was home before 9pm.
Eventually, we were reluctant to go back to regular operations, preferring to stick with just takeaways even when restrictions eased. We allowed some customers, who missed our long-table communal dining experience, to enjoy their dinner in-house once in a while.
Life’s lessons from Lot 8
It’s been a year now since we closed shop. The boys are now busy with university and their own lives. Besides, I couldn’t pay them enough to keep them interested. It was a small business.
There were some lessons that I picked up over the 5 years that I would like to share here. The same can be applied to life in general.
You don’t need experience to start something new. You gain experience and knowledge by doing. And learning as you go.
Keep the menu simple. Too many options increase your costs and wastage. You can’t give everyone everything.
A crisis can often lead to opportunities. When bad things happen, as they inevitably will, look for opportunities.
Children who work and earn their allowance appreciate money and labour better than those who just receive a handout. The same goes for everyone else.
Be grateful for those who support you, as well as those who made it difficult for you. They all help in one way or another.
When it is time to let go, move on.
To new adventures!
So thank you for your kind support. I really, really appreciate your being here.
For those who came when we were at Lot 8, I want you to know how much you meant to us. We were fortunate that most of our customers are also our friends.
I sometimes feel like the grandmother who cooks for her extended family, and when I see how they love the food I cooked, hours and hours of preparation is all worth it.
I am now on this new adventure, and I hope to see you here for as long as I am writing. Thank you!
I hope you enjoyed this article. While "What Matters" is free, I do appreciate your support as a paid subscriber. If you don’t do subscriptions, you can also buy me a coffee. Either way, it means a lot.
Thank you for being here. Please remember to like, restack, and comment.
Thanks for opening and running Lot 8! It was the only avenue for us to taste and savour Singaporean food in Adelaide without having to fly back to Singapore. But more importantly, thanks for the friendship!