SINGAPORE — The first six months of 2016 might just be over, but for entrepreneur and founder of the Spa Esprit Group, Cynthia Chua, the year has already been a significant one.

Three months ago, she made the big move to open her first food and beverage (F&B) venture overseas in London with A Wanted Man. The 37-seater “espresso canteen” in a three-storey block in Chelsea, serves an innovative health-centric menu and an all-day breakfast, and has a waxing salon and brow bar attached.

The group’s two other restaurants in Singapore, Bochinche and Ding Dong, moved to new digs at Amoy street two weeks ago (their previous addresses were at Martin Road and Ann Siang Road, respectively); later this year, she is set to launch a line of beauty products such as aloe vera gel and calendula cream formulated from the crops that Spa Esprit has grown in outdoor spaces such as restaurant and community garden Open Farm Community and the rooftop of Raffles City.

And she is already targeting to open more F&B and beauty outlets overseas, including cafe Common Man in Kuala Lumpur by this month, Open Door Policy and Common Man in Shanghai next, while actively looking for a space in Berlin.

“Spa Esprit Group creates brands that are not just suitable for Asia, we create brands that are current and could work anywhere — for instance, A Wanted Man and Common Man are coffee places that could be in any city. The world is so connected. It doesn’t matter if you’re in London, New York or Singapore. We’re all experiencing a third-wave coffee movement, and food is a way of life,” she said.

Overseas expansion is very much on her agenda as it is not easy to grow in Singapore because of its limited space and labour issues. Chua is also not in a hurry to bang out new concepts for Singapore, saying it is all about the right concept for the right space.

“It’s harder in Singapore at the moment because if you don’t want to be in a mall, where can you be?” she shared. “Singapore has a smaller footprint — how many estates are like Tiong Bahru? I can’t grow as fast even if I wanted to bacause of all the constraints every other entrepreneur is facing. This was also one reason that propelled us to do things overseas.”

OF IDEAS AND EXECUTION

Of course, opening her maiden F&B outlet overseas has been a steep learning curve. “Crossing platforms to do F&B has been challenging. It’s a different culture and the industry is so competitive. Our menu at A Wanted Man is completely different, too—it wasn’t something we were just replicating. We customised the concept to fit in with what was needed in Chelsea,” explained Chua. In terms of execution, Chua added that the team started almost from scratch as well. “There were new rules to learn — for instance, the labour laws in Britain are very different. Part-timers are entitled to bank holidays; there are things such as council rates to be paid, and the Value Added Tax is extremely high,” she said. “We had a short window of time to get everything done before opening. But I’ve psyched myself up that it will be tough and I couldn’t take things for granted.’”

The hard work paid off. Response to A Wanted Man has been very encouraging — customers are interested and curious about the menu and, perhaps, in the biggest boost of all, a few have even commented that they have been to sister cafe Common Man in Singapore.

“I feel really proud to be a Singaporean when they mention that they’ve been to the outlet at 22 Martin Road,” Chua enthused. “I never dreamt that people overseas will know about Common Man from Singapore.”