SINGAPORE — From a wood-fired oven in a bungalow in East Coast, Long Weekend Pizza can churn out 200 pizzas a day. At 37 Blair Road, Little Social serves Peranakan dinners to up to 60 guests at a time in a residential conservation shophouse. And in HDB flats, cocktail bars have popped up serving bespoke drinks that can cost up to $25 a pop.

These are some examples of the booming home-based food and beverage scene in Singapore.

Some of these home businesses are operating on a scale that rivals full-fledged restaurants, causing restaurant owners to voice concern over what they see as a growing, yet unregulated sector.

Online and in interviews with The Straits Times, restaurateurs called for fairer rules. They say many of these home operations are not subject to the same strict regulatory, licensing and tax requirements faced by bricks-and-mortar restaurants.

Chua Ee Chien, who used to run a bar and restaurant for six years, wrote on LinkedIn earlier in June about what he called "double standards" for home businesses.

Home-based bars operate without a liquor licence, home restaurants do not need food safety permits, and some businesses even use their domestic helpers to help with service and food preparation, he said.

"Something feels broken," said Chua, whose post came after a June 1 article in The Sunday Times about home-based cafes.

Brisk business

Some home businesses here appear to be doing a brisk trade, and have become darlings of foodies and food critics, with reservations hard to come by.

For instance, Lucky House Cantonese Private Kitchen run by Sam Wong in an East Coast terraced house, charges $130 per person and has been booked out from now until March 2026.

Little Social, another popular home business, charges $140 per head for a Peranakan meal of seven dishes, and dining parties can stretch from four to 60 people.

The Home-Based Business scheme was introduced in the 1980s as a way for residents to supplement their household income, and such set-ups boomed during the pandemic as workers sought to make extra money.

Under the scheme, there are certain conditions. "Heavy equipment or appliances" that are not intended for domestic use are not allowed. Businesses also have to ensure that they do not cause an "adverse impact" to their neighbourhoods, among other things.

While the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and Housing Board oversee the scheme, home businesses do not require approval or licences to operate. And both URA and HDB said they do not keep track of the number of such businesses.

An online search by The Straits Times found more than 150 listings of food and beverage businesses operating out of residential properties, ranging from HDB flats to landed homes, but actual numbers are likely higher.

Frustrated restaurateurs

Loh Lik Peng, founder of Unlisted Collection — which is behind Michelin-starred restaurants including Burnt Ends, Restaurant Zen and Cloudstreet — believes that most home-based businesses still operate on a small scale and do not directly compete with high-end restaurants like his.

But he said there is growing frustration among industry players over some home businesses that appear to function as full-fledged dining venues, serving large groups several nights a week.

This seemed unfair, Loh said, pointing out that restaurants are subject to rigorous licensing, hygiene standards, manpower rules, and increasingly high costs.

He believes clearer guidelines are needed to define what qualifies as a home-based business, and said those with significant turnover should be subject to goods and services tax obligations.

"I am not against home-based businesses... Some of them do fulfil a need, like the smaller-scale ones where people bake cookies at home to sell during Chinese New Year and Hari Raya. I don't have any problems with those," said Loh.

"But others who are likely breaching the $1 million annual revenue threshold (should be) put in commercial territory. I think those need to be well-defined, now."

When scale pushes the boundaries

Like Loh, restaurant owners pointed out that the scale of some of these outfits stretches the definition of a home-based business.

Dax Chew and Arnold Tay, who run Long Weekend Pizza, told ST in an earlier interview that they can sell around 200 pizzas a day from a wood-fired oven in the driveway of their parents' landed home.

Long Weekend Pizza declined to comment for this article.

Antonio Miscellaneo, who runs Italian restaurants La Bottega Enoteca and Casa Vostra, said some of these operations mirror professional restaurants in terms of their set-up and volume.

"When you have people queueing outside your house to collect the food, there's a cashier at the front, and you are organised just like a commercial business, it becomes unacceptable for restaurant owners because that's basically cheating the system," he said.

With minimal overheads and no rent, licence fees and labour costs to pay, these businesses can be multiple times more profitable than a restaurant, he said.

Aside from the cost of ingredients, private home dining operators often have minimal expenses, yet some charge up to $150 per guest, Miscellaneo noted.

Such a home restaurant serving 10 diners daily could make $1,500 per night, or around $30,000 a month if it operates five days a week.

"After accounting for food costs which may range from 20 per cent to 40 per cent, depending on the ingredients, profits could still amount to $15,000 to $17,000," he said.

This exceeds many salaried incomes and it is clear such operations are lucrative and should be subject to taxation and regulations like commercial businesses, he added.

Miscellaneo, who started his business offering private dining from his condominium before setting up two restaurants, said he supports home cooking on a small scale - such as a chef preparing meals for around 10 guests.

Philippe Pau, director of Bistro du Vin, a French bistro under Les Amis Group, said some home-based operations even tap foreign domestic workers or unregistered part-time workers.

Pau said licensed operators have to deal with rents and regulations, including manpower laws, while home-based businesses exist in what he described as a regulatory "blind spot".

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said domestic helpers are not allowed to assist in home-based businesses.

Responding to ST's queries, its spokesman said migrant domestic workers (MDWs) are only allowed to perform household chores for their employers at their registered residential address.

From 2022 to 2024, MOM received 14 complaints involving employers who illegally deployed their MDWs to assist in their home-based business.

It said it has taken appropriate enforcement actions against errant employers, who can be fined up to $10,000 and barred from employing MDWs.

In a joint response to ST, URA and HDB said residents living in HDB and private residential premises can carry out small-scale home-based food businesses to supplement their household income.

Both agencies did not say how they defined "small scale".

But they stressed that home-based businesses must comply with HDB and URA's guidelines. These include ensuring that the premises remain a place of residence, not hiring workers from outside the household, and not displaying physical advertisements or signage at the unit.

"Nonetheless, we do not prohibit them from promoting their business online or through other means, such as labels on their products," the agencies said.

"While we do not impose a cap on the number of guests allowed in a private dining setting, residents conducting home-based businesses are reminded to operate in a responsible and considerate manner, and not cause disturbance or inconvenience to other residents in the neighbourhood."

The agencies added that they would initiate investigations upon receiving feedback concerning home-based businesses, and take appropriate enforcement action where necessary.

This could include requiring the operator to scale down or relocate their business to commercial premises.

"We have already been engaging some of these operators to require them to adjust their business operations, and will calibrate our actions based on the facts and circumstances of each case," said the agencies.

When it comes to food safety, a Restaurant Association of Singapore spokesman said clearer regulatory definitions are needed.

A Singapore Food Agency (SFA) spokesman said home-based businesses are not required to hold an SFA licence because "the food safety risk is limited by the scale of their business operation".

The spokesman added that SFA will take enforcement actions for food safety breaches, such as selling food that is unsafe or unsuitable for consumption.

In 2024, there were six cases of enforcement against home-based food businesses, said SFA.

"Home-based food businesses implicated in food safety incidents may also be directed to stop operations immediately or to recall food products sold," said the SFA spokesman.

Home businesses respond

Home-based business operators said they are mindful of the URA, HDB and SFA guidelines that apply to them, but some others were not clear about the rules until they were interviewed.

According to Wong of Lucky House Cantonese Private Kitchen, home businesses face their own share of limitations operating from home.

He pointed out that he does not operate on weekends — which are peak dining days — and that he does not serve small groups. He is also prohibited from serving alcohol and occasionally gets last-minute cancellations.

"I can only do three tables with a maximum of 30 diners per night. We are always limited by the space in our house," said Wong. "Our neighbours might complain so we have to be very mindful."

By 2026, Wong will have been running his private kitchen business for a decade.

ST also reached out to Little Social, but the business did not respond to requests for comment.

Others in the home-based community said they are also trying to comply with the agencies' guidelines.

Rachel Neo, who co-founded Knead Kopi with her boyfriend in March, said her patrons are mostly neighbours. The couple set up their cafe in the porch of her family's terraced house in Watten Rise in Bukit Timah.

Neo said she has also completed food safety training, and removed all signage after learning that advertisements were not allowed.

Raymond Leong, who runs the Peranakan home-dining business Ampang Kitchen from a semi-detached house, admitted he was unaware that domestic helpers are not allowed to help with his business activities. He plans to stop involving his domestic helpers in the operations.

Restaurateurs said they were not calling for a ban on home-based dining, but urged the authorities to pay closer attention to home businesses.

Cedric Tang, the third-generation owner of Ka-Soh restaurant, has shut two outlets since the pandemic and may close the last one in Greenwood Avenue, after struggling with rent increases and manpower shortages.

Tang said he has no plans to move into home-based dining but is considering selling chilled or frozen packs of the restaurant's signature fish soup.

"Even if I pivot to selling takeaway or frozen items, I still believe there should be some form of oversight — whether it's for food safety, for taxes, or for fairness," said Tang.

Conditions for home-based businesses

• The business must be operated by owners, registered occupants or tenants. Third parties are not allowed to operate the business, and non-resident employees cannot be hired.
• No advertisements, signage, or posters can be displayed at the residential premises.
• No extra traffic should be introduced to the area. There should not be any adverse impact to the neighbourhood and the living environment — this could include noise, smoke, smell, litter, effluent or danger posed to surrounding residents.
• No use of heavy equipment or appliances that are not intended for domestic use.
• No large-scale storage, or frequent loading and unloading of goods.
• The activities must comply with the rules and regulations of other authorities, such as the SFA for food safety and hygiene, and fire safety requirements.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.