Musings of an Intrepid Business Owner (I)
A whole year has passed since I registered my F&B business and went about setting it up. I’ve been so busy running 10 roles at the same time that I haven’t had time to update my blog. Now that I’ve had more time, I wanted to share some of my misadventures as a business owner, which hopefully will be a source of comfort and knowledge for anyone who is reading this.
My landlord finally approved my proposal in end May so we could finally get all the works done – confirm the menu, headcounts, renovation and various administrative matters.
#1 How to save on interior design
I had limited budget for interior design and renovation so I pretty much DIY the whole design and contracted some people to help with painting, carpentry and wallpapering. I used Procreate on my iPad to help with the design process. First I took a perspective photo of the whole unit and then overlaid it with a white canvas to outline the key features, i.e. the walls, counter, floor and cupboards. Then I filled the space for each with the proposed design and colors. I used this method to try out different wallpaper designs which I took off the Internet till I found the design and color scheme that I liked. Though the final product turned out pretty good, I spent 3 whole days and probably killed million of brain cells to accomplish this and I am not sure if I want to go through that again.
#2 Understand the different types of glass sticker decal
I did have one accident when it came to the renovation. I got a printing company to print a mascot that my daughter drew for the brand. The character has white hair and I had asked for transparent printing as this would be pasted on my glass door. When the color proof came back to me I realised that white translates into transparent for this kind of sticker print which would defeat the purpose of white hair. So I asked the printer to layer on opaque white for the hair at additional cost. Lo and behold on the day of the installation, I got the fright of my life when I realised that when the lights are turned off, the character looked like a ghost! It was such a blunder and I silently blamed the printing company for their lack of due diligence. In the end I had to buy a white-based door curtain to affix on the other side of the glass door to fix this.
#3 Applying for SFA license
It was July. One month left to our official opening. I was given a one-month rent-free period for the retrofitting and I daresay that my landlord made sure that I used it all up just to get their sign off! As part of the final sign off with them I needed to produce several documents such as the approved food shop license from SFA, my revised single line drawing for the unit and fire safety certificates from SCDF. The wonderful thing is that other than the first item, my landlord had failed to notify me that these were required till a week before I was scheduled to commence operations! You can totally imagine my frustration at dealing with them.
But before that I had my SFA inspection to contend with. The inspection was via Zoom which was pretty convenient. The inspector asked to see the temperature gauges for all my chillers and freezers, checked that all my taps had running water, the skirting covered up to a certain level of the wall and that I had a proper commercial exhaust installed. The latter was something I was not aware of as I had just installed a normal domestic hood (just to fulfill the requirements from the landlord). The SFA officer insisted that I take down the domestic hood and told me that I couldn’t proceed with the food shop license until I had installed a commercial exhaust (which by the way would cost a bomb!). I was flabbergasted. It felt like my journey had ended even before it started!
Thankfully the SFA officer gave me a way out. She told me that I could convert my application to a snack shop license instead which didn’t require the exhaust. However she cautioned me again and again that I cannot absolutely deep fry anything in the premise under this license. Yes m’am! So with that I got my SFA license to commence operations.
#4 A series of unfortunate misunderstandings
Now for the single line drawing I had to engage a licensed electrical worker (LEW) to sign it off before submitting it to my landlord. While we were working on the drawings, the LEW told me that my incoming power was 64 amps which was different from the original single line drawing showing 32 amps, so they updated it for me. Upon submitting it to my landlord, the facilities insisted that my drawing was wrong and we went back and forth several rounds to verify it. They finally decided to come down to my unit and lo and behold, they realised (aghast!) that it was indeed 64amps. And while they were at it, they decided that they would like to shift the power meter to an external location so that it would be easier for them to check the electricity consumption, which was fine by me as long as it didn’t interfere with my commencement date.
After we did the final syncing of the single line drawing and submitted it to the facilities, they told me that I needed the document signed off by their own LEW!! Again this was a new requirement that wasn’t made known to me. To make matters worse, the landlord’s LEW refused to sign off the document unless he could perform a joint inspection with the contractor who did the original electrical installation! Where was I supposed to locate him?! I contacted the person whom I took over the premise from and he was confounded by the requirement too. However he couldn’t help me because the wiring etc. were already in place when he had taken over the unit. Finally at wit’s end, I went back to my landlord and told them that it was an impossible task and that their LEW was making my life difficult.
I think the desperation in my tone finally got them to investigate and after a few days, they came back and told me it was a huge misunderstanding on the LEW part. He thought that I was getting my own contractor to move the power meter outside instead of contracting the in house LEW so in his pettiness, he was making things difficult for me… It was then that I realised how totally incompetent the facilities team was.
#5 Proxy for fire safety certificate
The final obstacle was the fire safety certificate. I asked my renovation contractor if he knew anything about this and he told me that it would be rather costly and take at least one month for the certificate to be issued. I was really on the verge of tears when I heard that. Again I checked in with the previous tenant and he told me that I could simply write to SCDF for them to confirm that there was no need to submit a new fire safety certificate as long as the layout remained the same and that there was no change in the use of the premise. I did just that and within a couple of days got the confirmation from SCDF that I didn’t need to submit a new request for the certificate. I forwarded that email to my landlord hoping that this would solve the problem but they replied that for the purpose of insurance claims yada yada, I needed the certificate in my company’s name.
It was pretty much the last straw for me. I had tried my upmost to be polite with them most times but I just felt at this point that they were just out to make my life miserable with their unfair practices. As such I asked them if the previous tenant had submitted a fire safety certificate to them. They went radio silence on me for a couple of days and finally replied that the email from SCDF would do…
Anyway with this under the rug, my landlord finally accepted my documents. But they dropped me a final bomb. They would not give me the sign off to commence business as the building management would be scheduling to move the power meter outside which would require me to go without power for at least 24 hours. The best part was that they couldn’t provide a confirmation on when this would take place and my rent free period was already up. I asked if they were going to compensate me if I acceded to their request not to start business till this was done. No response. As such I decided for the first time in my life to go rogue and commence operations on the 2 August 2022. I really try my best to be a law abidding, rules following tenant but I realised that in the world of business, sometimes you just have to bend some rules especially when they are unreasonable.