SINGAPORE — The Hwa Lee Provision Store has been an enduring fixture of the void deck at Block 304 Shunfu Road for 40 years.
Its shopfront and nondescript signboard have remained the same since Chong Meng Choo, 90, first opened the store in 1984, when the Housing Board flats in the area were built.
But the store, which has survived financial crises, pandemics and much more besides, might be on its last legs, said Kelvin Lim, Chong’s youngest son.
"We are being forced into a corner by higher costs, online shopping and lower foot traffic. Worst of all, it is very hard to find someone reliable who is willing to take over," said Lim, Hwa Lee’s second-generation owner.
"I might have to close the shop in a few years, maybe even next year. I’m very tired, and there are many other things I want to do with my life, like travelling or product design."
Known colloquially as "mamak shops" (mamak means uncle in Tamil), standalone kiosks that sell provisions and sundry goods like Hwa Lee have been a fixture of HDB living for many decades.
But many of these businesses have shut, and operators who still run them say earnings have fallen over the years as they face growing pressure from supermarkets, chain convenience stores and online grocers.
Operators also say there are few candidates willing to take over their businesses as they approach retirement.
Newer HDB estates also have less expansive void decks which do not cater space for these stores, meaning the stores that remain could be the last mamak shops here.
Selling everything from soap and canned goods to toys, these void deck sundry stores were introduced by HDB in the 1970s. At their peak in the 1980s and 1990s, there were as many as 560 of such provision shops.
But figures from HDB show that the number of such shops has fallen over the years. In 2014, there were around 380; that number has fallen by more than a third to about 240 today.
As for Hwa Lee, the store originally began as a provision shop that Chong opened in 1977 in the Bukit Brown kampung where the family then lived. It moved to Shunfu in 1984, after the family was relocated there.
Lim, who is in his 50s, took over full time from his mother when the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020. Previously a sales director at tech firm HP and the founder of a lighting company, he had left the corporate world in 2011 to help his elderly mother part-time at Hwa Lee as she grew older.
Business took a 20 per cent to 30 per cent hit after the Upper Thomson MRT station on the Thomson-East Coast Line opened in 2021, as people no longer had to walk through Shunfu estate to get from Marymount Road to Upper Thomson Road, said Lim.
"Our regulars used to come here for their newspapers and little things like bread and snacks. But people now read and buy things online, and there are so many convenience stores near train stations. The newspaper vendor now brings about five copies of each paper, when it was 20 to 30 copies in 2022," he added.
Jannathun Abdul Hamid, 68, runs another mamak shop that might soon shut after serving residents in Tampines for more than 30 years.
The unnamed shop was opened by her husband Noor Mohamed, 70, at Block 425 Tampines Street 41, after the Sun Plaza View estate was completed in 1985.
Selling sundry goods and Indian spices, business was brisk for the first 20 years. But Jannathun said the shop’s earnings fell by more than 50 per cent after a Sheng Siong supermarket opened in 2015 just a 10-minute walk away.
"The supermarket is so near, and it sells more things, so people don’t need us that much any more. Now our business mostly comes from selling snacks and drinks to the pupils of the primary school across the road," she said.
While the monthly rental for her shop — which she leases from HDB — has creeped up slightly to around $1,500 currently, daily takings have fallen to about $200 to $300 a day, down from about $1,000 a decade ago.
Jannathun, who intends to work for as long as she can, said it does not make sense for her son, a chemical engineer in his 30s, to take over the store as he has a promising career and will soon have his own family to provide for.
But some provision shop operators said they are trying to stay relevant by offering digital payment methods such as PayNow, and selling products that might not be stocked in supermarkets, including tobacco rolling paper and henna.
Other shops, including Hwa Lee, also offer collection services for Shopee orders.
Lim, who made his store a Shopee collection point in September 2023, said doing so has improved foot traffic slightly, but said also that the time taken to find customers’ parcels sometimes leads to queues and lost business.
"Especially after special shopping sales like 11.11, it gets very hectic, and it’s tough for me to be digging for their parcels alone while managing the queue," said Lim, who stores between 100 and 200 Shopee parcels at his shop at any one time.
But growing economic pressures aside, experts said that the changing architecture of HDB estates is another reason why mamak shops might soon be a thing of the past.
Professor Thomas Schroepfer, director of the Singapore-ETH Centre’s Future Cities Lab Global programme, said void decks in newer HDB estates are built to be much smaller than those in older ones, so there is less space for retail units like standalone kiosks.
Neighbourhood centres and shopping malls have also become more common in HDB estates, reducing residents’ reliance on provision shops, he added.
"Beyond their practical function, provision shops hold a special place in the hearts of many Singaporeans," said Prof Schroepfer, who also teaches architecture and sustainable design at the Singapore University of Technology and Design.
"These small, often family-run businesses often became trusted fixtures in the neighbourhood, contributing to the 'kampung spirit' of close-knit community ties."
Many of these mamak shops have been in neighbourhoods for so long that many patrons said they remind them of the years gone by.
Retiree Ramaiyan Rangarajan, 65, has shopped at Hwa Lee for 35 years. He would buy bread and eggs there, among other necessities, each time he visited his mother, who lived in the Shunfu estate until her death in August.
"I’ve been returning to my late mother’s flat just to keep her things. But I like coming here to see Mr Lim and the shop," he said.
"My mother came here often, and it reminds me of her."
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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.
