Singapore Airlines flight attendant quits to open food stall

After four years of rejections, she got the job on her tenth try.

Tan spent the next six Years flying around the world and discover new countries every other day.

“My time as a flight attendant was the best time of my life,” Tan, now 29, told me, adding that she really enjoyed the work-life balance it provided.

But by the end of her fifth year, Tan was yearning for a change in her life. Flying was starting to feel like a daily routine and she was unsure if she would have job security and career prospects as a flight attendant, she said.

At the same time, her husband Duncan Hsu, now 36, had worked as a chef in a hotel and wanted to start his own business. Tan saw this as an opportunity for her to open a street stall together in a kopitiam – an open-air cafe in Singapore that sells a wide variety of dishes at reasonable prices.

So in May, the couple invested 30,000 Singapore dollars, or about $23,000, of their own money to open a stall in western Singapore.

They named the stall Kiang Kiang Taiwan Teppanyaki and planned a menu inspired by a Japanese cooking style introduced to Taiwan in the 1970s — “teppan” means “iron plate” and “yaki” means “grilled.” Diners choose from steak, chicken, pork or halibut, then add either rice or noodles and additional sides.

Since the dishes are inspired by her husband's Taiwanese heritage, the meat is served with Taiwanese-style black pepper or mushroom sauce.

Trading a comfortable job for longer hours and lower pay

As a flight attendant for Singapore Airlines, Tan said she earned about 6,000 Singapore dollars, or $4,600 a month, depending on the number of flights she took. When she quit her job to become a street vendor, Tan estimates she earned 50 percent less.

But for Tan, the pay cut was simply part of the process. “This is not our end goal,” she said, adding that they plan to expand the business in the future. “So I just had to bite the bullet.”

And even though she earned less, her bank account still grew because she worked long hours as a street vendor. As a flight attendant, Tan had about one day off after two or three days of work a week. She also spent more on food and shopping when she traveled to different countries, she said.

Now Tan works 12 hours a day, six days a week. “I don't have time to spend my money elsewhere,” she says.

Tan said it It took me a while to get used to working in the 13.5 square meter stall, which gets hot and stuffy when Hsu grills meat.

Her parents were against her career change. “To this day, they ask me why I have to give up a comfortable job,” she says.

Not an easy business to get into

It is challenging to succeed in the street vendor business. While the start-up costs may be lower than other food and trading businesses, the business is physically demanding and can yield low profits.

“There is no guarantee of success. Some people have failed. That's the reality. If you don't do your homework well and study your menu, you will fail very quickly,” KF Seetoh, restaurant critic and founder of Urban Hawker in New York City, previously told BI. Urban Hawker is the first street food center in the US to offer Singaporean hawker cuisine.

Despite the risks involved, Tan was confident in her decision. “I wasn't really worried about whether the business would be successful because I have a lot of trust in my husband,” Tan said. She met Hsu during an internship in Taiwan in 2014. The couple married in 2019.

Business was slow at first. They sold about 50 sets a day, costing between 8.50 and 13.50 Singapore dollars each. They also had to consider monthly expenses: Tan estimates that the stall's running costs are about 21,000 Singapore dollars a month, including rent of about 5,500 Singapore dollars.

But business began to recover when Tan's videos about her life as a street vendor gained traction on TikTok. Local media also began covering the business. The fact that the stall owner had worked for Singapore Airlines sparked curiosity and interest, she said.

Visiting their food stall on a Friday afternoon in August, I saw a few customers finishing their last bites of the hot plate meal. It was almost the end of lunchtime and the side dish of bean sprouts had sold out.

While Hsu was in the kitchen preparing the last orders, Tan was doing one task after another without a break. I saw her packing orders, putting sauce into takeaway packages and chatting with customers.

Tan said the skills she learned as a Singapore Girl – a nickname for the airline's female flight attendants – had proved helpful in unexpected ways. “I'm used to talking to customers. As a street vendor, I get to make customers feel comfortable,” she said. “I think that's nice. I mean, you don't really get that at street stalls because people usually just order their food and leave,” she said.

The advantages of being a street vendor

When Tan was a flight attendant, all she had to do was report to work, follow instructions, and receive her regular salary at the end of each month.

But now Tan is her own boss. While Hsu is responsible for the cooking, Tan takes care of the cash register, the administrative work, the accounting and marketing.

Although Tan can't imagine returning to her life as a pilot, she misses one thing: the food.

“I'm not talking about airplane food,” she said. “I mean food abroad. You know, biryani in India, The Cheesecake Factory in the US,” she said, laughing.

She said she was proud to be part of a larger movement to prevent Singapore's hawker culture from dying out.

In 2022, street vendor culture was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. According to the National Environment Agency website, the average age of street vendors in 2020 was 60 years old — although the retirement age in Singapore is 63.

As Tan said, “You will need a new generation to support the hawker culture.”

As the excitement of lunchtime began to subside, Tan began preparing the ingredients for dinner.

“Life as a street vendor is challenging, but I believe it will be worth it if more young people are willing to take this path,” she said.