Astons Closes All Outlets During Circuit Breaker Period Despite It Being in F&B

If you think all F&B outlets are open during this Circuit Breaker period, you must have been one of those people who’ve not left your house for 97 days—

Reader Bao: 9 days

—right, 9 days.

Because even when all F&B outlets, including bubble tea and bak kwa stalls, are allowed to open, not all of them did just that.

Reader Bao: Why? They should be making millions now since—

Never look at things just on the surface.

Astons Closes All Outlets During Circuit Breaker Period Despite It Being in F&B

We all know, and most probably, love Astons.

It makes western food in restaurants great again, and it’s the pioneer of affordable western food restaurants.

So everyone’s expecting the chain to remain open during this Circuit Breaker period, right?

No.

The restaurant chain, which includes Astons Steak & Salad, has officially closed all its outlets.

Initially, its Sembawang Shopping Centre outlet (unknown if there are any other outlets) had stayed open.

But now, even that outlet is closed.

According to its announcement, it’s to “slow the transmission of Covid-19”.

Sister Brand Chic-a-Boo Also Closed All Outlets Except One

And for the same reason, its sister brand, Chic-a-Boo, has closed all its outlets except for the one in Sembawang Shopping Centre.

I don’t know what’s so special about Sembawang Shopping Centre lah.

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That outlet, however, would have a menu for selected items only, and is only available in Foodpanda and takeaway at shorter operating hours, from 11:30am to 8:30pm.

Now, going back to Reader Bao’s question: shouldn’t all eateries remain open during this period? They can make a killing now.

Apparently not.

Commissions from Food Delivery Platform Makes Everything Unprofitable

You might not know this, but there’s a commission the eatery has to pay for every order you make on your favourite food delivery app.

The commission ranges from 30% to 35% of each order. In other words, if you’ve just ordered 2 packs of chicken rice from your favourite chicken rice stall, the hawker’s just getting back about $6.50.

The authorities have stepped in to help by offering to pay 5% of the commission, which will reduce the commission rate to 25% to 30%.

But of course that’s still a steep amount, given that the profit margin for food isn’t high—which is one of the key reasons why you don’t see hawkers in food delivery platform. In fact, over in the US, people are suing food delivery companies for the high commission.

A F&B owner in Singapore has done the maths for you:

And someone turned it into a nifty infographic:

To put it simply, eateries that remain open might not be making money—for all you know, they could be losing money when they stay open.

An online petition has also been set up to address this issue.

While Astons mentioned that the main reason is to slow the transmission of Covid-19, the real reason why other eateries aren’t opening is that it’s just not feasible.

No wonder sales of frozen food has spiked up. That is the industry that’s making a killing.

Now, if you feel bad for the hawkers and intend to have instant noodles for the rest of the Circuit Breaker period, don’t. Watch this video and you’d understand:

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