On a typical Friday night, many youths would either be hanging out with friends, preparing for a night out or heading to bed. 

And then there is Delonix Tan, who is just waking up and getting ready to go to the wet market at Kim Keat Palm Market and Food Centre. 

For the 27-year-old, this is a weekly routine that will only get more hectic when his new F&B venture at MyVillage called San Dai Yong Tau Foo, which sells hearty bowls of yong tau foo, opens in September. 

Prior to pursuing this project, Delonix juggled a full-time job at a catering company — which he recently resigned from — while helping his parents with the daily tasks at their family wet market stall, San Dai Fishball.

In his free time, he manages and creates content for San Dai Fishball's social media platforms, in which he also shares the day-to-day routine of helping manage the stall and amassing a modest following of more than 23,000 and almost 9,000 users on Instagram and TikTok respectively.

With so much on his plate, Delonix initially had been hesitant about pursuing something as adventurous, risky and challenging as a new F&B concept, he told AsiaOne when we paid him a visit at his uncle's yong tau foo stall, Xin Mei Cooked Food, where he is learning how to operate a yong tau food business. 

"I had been thinking about [setting up my own F&B business] for quite some time already, but I never really took action because I had a full-time job and I was struggling with all the social media stuff [for San Dai Fishball], so I was pretty maxed out," he revealed. 

But fast forward to March, and a collaboration with a popular local F&B brand would turn his dream into a reality. 

The pressures of being a third-gen hawker

For the past eight years, Delonix's life has revolved around food, specifically fishballs and yong tau foo. 

He first dipped his toes in the industry by working part-time at San Dai Fishball while he was completing National Service. 

"When I first joined the business, it frankly was very brutal. I couldn't really get used to it," he told us bluntly. 

"But after some time, after I got used to the flow, it eventually became a part of my identity." 

Apart from the job being physically and mentally taxing, it put a strain on his relationship with his family, especially his father. 

While working in the family business did allow him to spend more time with them, this also led to more room for friction. 

"The headache part is handling the conflict. Initially, when I started out at the family business, my dad and I had a lot of conflict. It was a shaky period for us, especially since outside of the business, we have a very good relationship," he shared. 

There is the pressure to perform, too. 

"Being a third-generation hawker is a bittersweet experience. It's good in the sense that we already got a base so we don't need to start from zero," he shared. 

"But it's also very stressful, because let's say if I fail, I'm not only failing as a person, but I feel that I will tarnish my family's five decades of legacy." 

After several years of honing his skills, he had attempted to strike it out on his own in 2020 by opening a stall at Amoy Street Food Centre selling fishball noodles. 

Unfortunately, this was short-lived because a few months later, the Covid-19 pandemic happened. 

"We went into lockdown and the Central Business District virtually had nobody at all," he recounted. 

"I opened during Covid-19 and I closed during Covid-19 because I didn't know how long the pandemic would last. I'm lucky I closed it because I would have bled out even more money if I had continued." 

While Delonix tried to keep the business afloat during those dark times, the Circuit Breaker measures and drop in footfall didn't help his new business, so he eventually had to shutter it. 

During the pandemic, he also attempted starting a business outside the F&B scene: A photo studio called Pixslut. However, after a year of managing it, he sold it away. 

"I tried a few things and realised that all businesses are difficult," he shared.

In December last year, Lau Wang Claypot, a popular chain restaurant specialising in traditional claypot dishes, asked Delonix if he could do a three-month collaboration with them. 

"They just reached out to me and I thought, why not give it a shot?" said Delonix. 

The collaborative event, which kicked off in March, featured two dishes — Curry Yong Tau Food and Collagen Soup — that were prepared with San Dai Fishball's 100 per cent yellowtail fish meatballs, yong tau foo and fishballs. 

And these were a huge hit with diners. 

"It reassured me that my idea of a retail arm for San Dai Fishball is workable and people want to eat our cooked food. In fact, a lot of our customers texted me saying they were happy with our collaboration with Lau Wang Claypot because now, they can eat our food without the inconvenience of coming down to the market in the morning to buy our products." 

So, after the collaboration was done and dusted in May, Delonix pitched the idea of opening a yong tau foo stall to Lau Wang Claypots founder Mark Jeremy Low, sharing that while it was something he has wanted to try for a long time, he "lacked the expertise". 

He offered to "run the show" while the folks at Lau Wang Claypot would teach him how to do branding and turn the business into a "small quick-service restaurant", and the two parties agreed to be business partners. 

Delonix's father will also be helping him with the yong tau foo production. 

Initially, Delonix had wanted to operate in a hawker centre but after some discussions, he and Mark agreed to open their very first outlet in a mall at Serangoon Gardens. 

"After I discussed this with Mark, I think this makes sense. We want to bring our food to the next level," he said. 

Delonix elaborated that by having an eatery in a mall as compared to a hawker centre, it's easier to hire manpower because potential employees would prefer working in an air-conditioned environment. 

Another reason is that a restaurant would give them more flexibility with the menu. 

"For example, in a coffee shop, there are many things I can't sell, such as drinks, because there will already be a drinks stall. But with my own restaurant, I can sell whatever I want and be more innovative with what I want to portray for my brand," he explained. 

Ungodly hours, 7 days a week 

To prepare for the opening of San Dai Yong Tau Foo, Delonix has had to tweak his day-to-day schedule. 

In the past, on weekdays, he worked full-time at his friend's catering company, Kitchen Haus Group, as a senior operations executive. And on weekends, he was at San Dai Fishball from 12am to 10am. 

Now, since he quit his job, he spends Mondays to Fridays at his uncle's yong tau foo stall at Hougang Hainanese Village Centre, learning the ropes from around 6.30am to 2pm. And over the weekends, he continues to help his parents with the family business at San Dai Fishball. 

On top of that, he and his partners at Lau Wang Claypot would meet to do research and development for the San Dai Yong Tau Foo, which includes trying out different recipes for the noodles. 

Things will only get busier for Delonix once his new yong tau foo stall officially opens next month.

San Dai Yong Tau Foo will operate all seven days a week from 9am to 9pm, and though Delonix will be hiring employees to manage the day-to-day operations, he plans on working every day at the new eatery with no breaks until the business stabilises. 

This involves him producing fishballs and yong tau foo at San Dai Fishball in Toa Payoh from midnight to 7am and heading to his new eatery afterwards around 8am to prepare the food. He will only end work at about 3pm and after which, his staff will take over. 

To him, this arrangement is already quite "sustainable". 

"We are operating every day with no off days, Monday to Sunday. It's to increase our likelihood of breaking even," he elaborated. 

Apart from the ungodly hours, Delonix shared that running an F&B business will be much harder than what he is used to doing at his parents' wet market stall. 

"If you're talking about the difference between a wet market stall and a cooked-food store, it is very different. Working at a cooked-food stall is way more intense. At a wet market stall, once I've produced the fishballs, I can just sell them and go back home," he explained, adding that for an F&B business, there are additional steps such as preparing and cooking the food. 

"[A cooked-food stall] is more dangerous as well. The soup is hot so your hand may get burnt."

Delonix also shared that the snippets of his life that he shares on San Dai Fishball's Instagram don't fully show how tough the nature of his job is. 

"Think twice if you want to work in F&B, it's not as easy as you think. It looks very glamorous. When people see my social media posts they think that I'm doing well, but they don't see the long hours and the sacrifices," he said. 

Preparing for something new 

In total, Delonix and his partners have pumped more than six digits into the business, with him being the majority shareholder. 

And with it being "unknown territory" for him, he's certainly feeling the pressure, especially since he's already run into some challenges. 

But Delonix still finds all this "very exciting" because he's learning plenty of new things. 

To cite an example, he talked about the renovation process and how he now understands that landlords have many different requirements. 

He also has to settle things like manpower, furniture, electricity, pest control and his Singapore Food Agency License. 

And while preparations for the new eatery are going relatively smooth, Delonix admitted that he's still a ball of nerves. 

"Frankly, I'm very scared. Even now, I'm still scared. Because the risk level is way higher as compared to [running] a hawker stall," he explained.

Some may wonder why Delonix is willing to spend his youth to pursue something so risky and taxing. 

But to him, it's all worth it. 

"It's my goal to carry on my family business. And I'm still in my 20s, so I should maximise what I can do at this age. I mean, I can't do this when I've got a wife and kids next time.

"So now is the time to chase after my dreams and follow my passion. Now I can be more selfish with my time." 

melissateo@asiaone.com