I wrote this post in response to an incident today meet by my aunite hawker assistance. It reflect on the difficuties met by many hawker everyday. I must also note most of my customeres are regular that are very nice people.
We are a dessert store in Ang Mo Kio Hawker center. Today a lady customer came and purchase 2 bowl of dessert for a total of $3.60 and she ask for a empty bowl that my auntie pass to her together with the order and she also help herself with many spoon(disposable).
Later another person from the same group came and ask for 4 more bowl which is refused because we really have limited amount to go around for the day.
Auntie offer her take away bowl at $0.20 each if she needed that much more. What happen next is a ugly sight that involved screaming, her whole group stand in front of the store and shaming at my auntie and keep saying “没人这样做生意的! (nobody does business like this)” for a good few mins and demand for the number of the person in charge and give a twisted version of the incident and threaten we will be “famous” (will not go into detail as it is not the point of this post)
The main reason for me writing this is really to explain the difficulties we face in operating as a hawker. We have very limited space to store our Bowls, spoon and we can only place 2 container for return of used bowls and our price is low.
Due to space and other restriction, only feasible time for us to wash bowl is after we close. If bowl is all used for the day, we will need to give take away container which will cut deeply into our profit as our average selling price is $1.80. .
Please when making request, for extra chopsticks, chili, bowl, sauces plate etc, please take what you need and request only what is reasonable ….. please, for $3.60 and ask for extra 5 bowl will mean we need to wash 7 bowl for $3.60
