Cassandra See Shuts Korean Hawker Stall After A Year, Citing Burnout From Cooking Daily As One Reason

Former Mediacorp actress Cassandra See has shut her Korean food stall Hungry Korean at a Geylang Bahru coffeeshop after just one year. Hungry Korean, which serves home-style Korean food like comforting stews, ramyeon, and burgers, closed after its lease was up on July 31.

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While many F&B businesses struggled to make ends meet during the dine-in ban, sales at Hungry Korean “increased by 10 to 15 per cent” after Cassandra, 51, turned to livestreaming to sell her bento sets. “A lot of people got to know about us from the Facebook live streams and there were repeat customers too,” Cassandra tells 8days.sg.

And while business has been “very good”, she decided not to renew her lease as she wants to upgrade to a restaurant. “I feel that running the stall the past year has been very good training for me. I learned a lot about running an F&B business and am confident in my food. I am ready to move on to bigger things,” she says.

Cassandra has been looking for a suitable space for the past few months and revealed that she was close to securing a shop unit in Alexandra. However, she put it on hold after a big and reputable F&B company expressed interest in working with her.

While she declined to elaborate, she said she is “seriously considering it” as the brand can help grow her business.

“I want to move to a bistro concept, offering Korean tapas, as well as drinks like soju and makgeolli. I will change the menu and make the dishes more refined. Of course, you can still expect our signature items like our Korean bak kut teh (pork rib collagen soup), volcano carbonara ramyeon, and burgers,” she says.

If things work out, she hopes to return with her new F&B concept in “two to three months’ time”.

Meanwhile, Cassandra is happy to take time off to rest. She has had to take on chef duties at the hawker stall after her Korean cook, who was also a partner, left the biz last November.

“I want to take at least two months off ’cos I am burned out from cooking and running the stall every day. It’s very difficult to get a full-time cook ’cos no one wants to work at a kopitiam. They all complain it’s too hot,” she laments.

And the constantly evolving dine-in rules didn’t help matters. “Things are so uncertain with Covid-19. Sometimes the authorities allow two pax to dine-in, sometimes five, sometimes it’s a complete ban. It’s very demoralising for businesses, so I decided to take a break and hopefully the situation would have improved by the time I open shop again,” shares Cassandra, adding that this also allows her to focus on her acting projects like upcoming Mediacorp drama The Peculiar Pawnbroker which she’s currently filming.

Prior to Hungry Korean, Cassandra ran a Korean army stew stall in Ang Mo Kio for almost two years. She parted ways with her business partners, including former actress Tang Miaoling, at the end of 2019.

Photos: Alvin Teo

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