How Song Fa Bak Kut Teh’s second-gen owners turned a hawker stall into an international chain

You might say that Singapore’s hawker culture — enshrined in a stodgy UNESCO list and extolled by celebrity chefs — is imperilled by its own catch-22 conundrum. Its continuity rests in the hands of successors, whose parents have ploughed their efforts into ensuring they can avoid the grinding, grease-trapped labour of their profession. It’s hardly a covetable career choice by any measure, considering the prohibitively steep rents, manpower crunch and capricious audience that are par for the course.

Yeo Hart Pong, the second-generation owner of Song Fa Bak Kut Teh, is inured to the hardships borne by hawkers. Growing up, he observed his father Yeo Eng Song logging 16-hour workdays, preparing the ingredients for his peppery pork ribs soup in the bleary-eyed hours of the morning and single-handedly running the stall till 10 at night.

“My father was a workaholic. Even on his days off he would run errands,” he recalled.Song Fa’s origin story is as seasoned with salt of the earth as they come. In 1969, the elder Yeo cobbled together his business from a rustic pushcart when he was 21. The second eldest of nine children, he had toiled since the age of nine to help put his siblings through school.  “He’d hand all his earnings over to my grandmother, who would in turn, give him pocket money. He continued to do so even after starting the business,” shared Hart Pong.

As his bak kut teh grew in popularity, the pushcart was superseded by a coffeeshop stall at Victoria Street and later, Rochor Centre. As youths, Hart Pong and his two siblings were enlisted to help at the stall, from manning the till to scooping rice and clearing tables. Besides beavering away his school holidays as an unpaid assistant, an industrious Hart Pong worked part-time jobs from the age of 13, making the rounds of F&B chains including Burger King and Fish and Co.

He'd never been partial to the inertia of a deskbound job, but was instead sure-footed in the intricate, circuitous dance routine with an ensemble cast across the restaurant floor. So, when his ageing father asked him to assume the mantle of running the family business shortly before he completed his tertiary studies, he agreed — on condition that he’d be given latitude to transform Song Fa. The business administration graduate would then move his father’s hawker stall up the food chain.

A HOUSEHOLD NAME

Wielding the same playbook as other independent hawkers-turned-chain operators including Michelin-minted Liao Fan Hawker Chan, Hart Pong and his siblings have ridden out the vagaries of the market by building economies of scale. They’ve expanded the business to 16 standalone outlets in Singapore — including a recently-opened Teochew restaurant — alongside its presence in China, Taipei, Bangkok and Indonesia.

But before he could get a toehold in commercialisation, he’d have to slog it out at his dad’s stall for a year, learning the inner workings of the business. “My dad said that I need to know every single thing because we can’t solely rely on our employees,” recounted the 43-year-old, who rose at four each morning to prepare ingredients and cook.

The young neophyte and his father landed upon their flagship restaurant at Newbridge Road fortuitously in 2007, after spotting a ‘for rent’ banner while driving. Their central location, not to mention, fall-off-the-bone tender pork ribs dishes, drew swift crowds — along with conflict. The biggest father-son dispute, to Hart Pong’s recollection, was provoked by his introduction of the point of sale (POS) system.

“My dad felt that it slowed down our turnover, while I insisted that we had to give our employees time to get used to it,” he explained. Smarting from an argument witnessed by their employees, the elder Yeo refused to speak to his son for close to a year. But he brazened it out and implemented the system regardless, eventually assuaging his father’s concerns with sales performance data.

“He realised that the system works, but just didn’t want to admit it,” said Hart Pong, laughing.

That’s not to say that he typically rides roughshod over his father’s opinions. A mantra he’s borrowed from the retired hawker is to never be complacent. To outpace the competition, his team conducts regular audits on their rivals. That, coupled with rigorous application of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) — a reflexive practice from Yeo’s previous stints at restaurant chains — proved useful in maintaining quality control as the business grew cautiously.

HOW TO WORK WITH KIN

Hart Pong’s younger brother, Zhi Yong, joined the company after they launched their Newbridge Road outlet. By the time their sister Diana had decided to leave her job as a flight attendant at Singapore Airlines in 2011, the duo (their father had taken a backseat in the business) had opened their third outlet at Changi Business Hub.

Like her younger brother, the eldest daughter is familiar with being placed in the deep freeze — a year appears to be the statute of limitations for their father’s chagrin. “He got really angry (when I started flying) because he invested in my overseas education and felt that it could have been put to proper use,” explained the 46-year-old, who flew the coop to “experience new things because I was so young and working all the time at the stall.”

Returning to roost after having her first child, she tapped on her degree in brand marketing to mould Song Fa’s identity. Customers back then associated the business with its former location, as well as their father’s colourful pink shirt. Today, it is synonymous with heritage and quality, thanks in part to Diana’s marketing savvy. The three siblings have different working styles — cut from the same cloth as their father, Hart Pong and his brother are fast on their feet, while Diana prefers to take a step back and process things — but make business decisions unanimously.

Around the time that his sister trotted out her branding strategy, Yeo took over the lease for a central kitchen occupied by a big brand, which he isn’t at liberty to disclose.  “I only had three or four outlets at that time, so it was a bit of a risk, but I felt that we could grow,” admitted Hart Pong. It shook out to be something of a breakthrough — allowing them to tighten the screws on their food consistency and lower costs by developing proprietary spice mixes. The latter task is overseen by Zhi Yong, whom Yeo says has the “magic touch.” As for food quality, the proof is in the corpulent, love handle-stacked mascot: Song Fa Bak Kut Teh was conferred the Michelin Bib Gourmand award in 2024.

More ambitiously, the facility is also central to Hart Pong’s vision of helping to buoy the local hawker scene. He plans to eventually supply young hawkers with products such as sauces and soup at minimal cost. “This will save them between two and four hours of preparation, so Gen Z hawkers can enjoy work-life balance; it’s a win-win situation,” he asserted.

Beyond our shores, the family made inroads by forging a joint venture with Indonesian partners, followed by another with the BreadTalk Group that goosed up its expansion. One of their early challenges was sourcing for the right ingredients in Indonesia, which typically exports its pork of higher quality. To capture the local market, Hart Pong imported American pork, and slapped “Made in USA” logos onto their menus. It proved effective; Song Fa recently marked 10 years in Indonesia, where they are teed up to open their 12th  and 13th outlets in Jakarta this year.

It wouldn’t be hyperbolic to say that the siblings have propelled their father’s mom-and-pop venture. Song Fa’s founder enjoys his retirement gardening and exercising, though he still occasionally checks on the outlets’ CCTV feeds.

Hart Pong  — who has an impatient streak and admitted to having offended suppliers in his younger, brasher days — betrays sentimentality when noting his father’s sacrifices for his own siblings. Both him and Diana take ostensible pride in safeguarding his legacy.

“He built the business with his bare hands, without knowledge of branding, proprietary rights or SOPs. He just knew that he needed to work hard and stay focused on improving himself,” said Diana.