Several months after closing his 17-year-old stall at Old Airport Road Food Centre, Toast Hut owner Melvin Soh has found a new home for the business.
But though he will be retaining the stall’s original name, toast won’t be on the menu, at least for now.
Toast Hut, which officially re-opened on Monday (Feb 17), currently occupies a shop space within Connection One Tower 1 at 168 Jalan Bukit Merah.
Its opening hours are on weekdays from 7am to 4pm.
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However, the menu will be noticeably different, as its popular kaya toast — an item many would expect at such an eatery — has been dropped.
“There will be no kaya toast till further notice, coffee and tea will definitely be back,” he shared.
Instead, the item has been replaced by another well-loved Singaporean staple — ‘cai fan’, or economic rice.
“Reasonably-priced economic rice will be the new item in my menu!” Melvin wrote.
In a post on Feb 10, he also shared that other menu items include fried bee hoon, fried noodles and fried kway teow with “a variety of side dishes”.
Speaking to AsiaOne, Melvin shared that he chose to reopen the business in Bukit Merah because he used to operate a cafe there called Sandffee, which shuttered during the pandemic.
“[We] went through a bidding system and was lucky to get this shop!” he told us.
He also explained that while sales of toast will “be on hold for now” due to manpower issues, he stated that it will “come back eventually”.
At present, he is running the eatery with his father and one apprentice.
Closed stall due to manpower issues
In a previous interview last October, Melvin told AsiaOne that he had shuttered his stall at Old Airport Road Food Centre because of manpower issues.
He explained that the stall needed at least four staff to keep it running and his mother, aunt and another employee used to help him.
However, they weren’t able to manage the workload due to their advancing age.
“I did try employing people to take over their roles but the expected salary and job scope didn’t match,” Melvin told us, adding that potential hires would ask for a high pay but not want to work long hours.
Back then, he already had plans to open a stall selling dishes that did not require as much manpower or skills such as economic fried bee hoon and Kuala Lumpur-style Hokkien noodles.
“Scooping food onto a plate should be an easier job to be done. Whereas for Toast Hut, we have to toast the bread, brew coffee, take orders and wash cups,” he told us at the time.
Address: 168 Jalan Bukit Merah, Singapore 150168
Opening hours: Weekdays, 7am to 4pm
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