'We started as a big dream': Big Dot Chicken, fried chicken hawker stall at Chinatown Complex, to close

After operating for less than a year, social enterprise hawker Big Dot Chicken will be closing. 

The fried chicken specialist, located at Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre, announced the news in an Instagram post on Feb 17. 

While their final day of operations is not confirmed, the owners shared that it should be "some time in April" by their estimates. 

However, if they manage to finish their inventory, they will shutter at an earlier date. 

"It's been an incredible journey cooking for 100+ of you regulars daily and we are quietly happy whenever we see you bring new friends to our little hawker stall in Chinatown," read the post. 

"We started as a big dream amongst friends to recreate a nostalgic fried chicken and yet keep it affordable and yummy amidst the rising costs everywhere. And we think we did it." 

The owners said that despite being limited by their "very small kitchen space", they tried their best to fry the "best chicken". 

"[We] were happy to have been featured by customers, famous influencers and guides! All of whom paid for their own meals as we did zero sponsored marketing because we simply don't have any marketing budget with our cheap prices!"

Big Dot Chicken also got candid, acknowledging their competitors "who came, checked us out, counted our lunch numbers, sabo (sabotaged) us with fake reviews, reporting our real five-star reviews as spam".

"We would like to say, we know what's happening and we forgive you!" they added. "We tried our best and now pass the baton to you to carry on the race. Peace and all the best!"

The hawker stall, which was started by three friends, opened last year in May and provided employment opportunities for underserved communities, according to their website. 

For keepsakes, Big Dot Chicken will be giving away mascot keychains with any combo purchase so that customers will remember them as "the ones that came and tried to make a difference". These are while stocks last. 

Speaking to AsiaOne, co-founder Ken Koh, 41, shared that when he and the other two co-founders, Jenny Lee, 46, and Hamidah Aidillah, 40, started Big Dot Chicken, they had two objectives.

The first was to start a social enterprise to provide affordable chicken to the masses and the second was to create employment for single parents.

While the team met their first objective, they struggled with the second.

They had planned to give single parents who worked with them for six months an opportunity to own their own stall under the Big Dot Chicken brand, with no royalties or franchise fees.

Altogether, there were six staff who tried this programme but none of them managed to hit the six-month mark.

"In hindsight, maybe our model of providing this six-month path to owning your own stall didn't work. It didn't fit the audience we were trying to help," Ken reflected.

"Our model worked in terms of a business but it didn't work in terms of providing the staff with a pathway."

After announcing the closure, several of Big Dot Chicken's customers offered to help the team continue with the business.

Two F&B groups also offered to take over the brand and run it, but the team rejected these.

They eventually decided to sell their recipe and standard operating procedures for $888 to aspiring hawkers.

Interested participants will go through a one-day training programme to learn the ropes.

As of the time of writing, over 50 people have signed up and 11 of them have paid for them.

The team also does not plan on reopening the business and will continue with their own jobs, which they had been juggling while running Big Dot Chicken. Jenny is a private chef, Ken is part of an F&B family business and Hamidah owns a research analytics firm.

melissateo@asiaone.com

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