Kith Café collapses from 12 outlets to zero, founder pivots to saving other F&Bs
Jane Hia’s Kith Café shut every one of its 12 outlets this year, closing the final two at Marina Square and New Bahru in early 2026.
Source: Vulcan Post Malaysia · July 23, 2026 at 11:07 PM · AI-assisted report
SINGAPORE, 24 JULY 2026 —
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Jane Hia’s Kith Café shut every one of its 12 outlets this year, closing the final two at Marina Square and New Bahru in early 2026.
Market Impact
After a 17-year run that peaked with more than 80 full-time staff and 100 part-timers, the chain succumbed to higher manpower and ingredient costs, softer consumer spending and weaker footfall. The West Coast outlet, run under franchisee Andy Lim, closed in January after Lim lost between S$70,000 and S$90,000 in the first year despite later profitability, Jane told local media.
Instead of leaving the trade, Jane, who trained in design at the National University of Singapore and opened Kith in 2009, is now advising struggling F&B operators. She helped a cruise-ship owner set up an onboard restaurant, café and KTV lounge, handled renovations, workflows and payment systems, and stepped back into frontline roles via gig platform Staffie to study service gaps.
For one restaurant client she relocated to cheaper but larger premises, reshaped manpower schedules and hired a new head chef. She also renegotiated supplier contracts and rent deals by drawing on her long-standing network of landlords and vendors.
The shift reflects the brutal maths in Singapore’s F&B sector. Jane told the Straits Times that optimism after COVID-19 never materialised. “This era for cafés is harder than during COVID-19,” she said. “It’s not enough to be trendy or Instagrammable. You have to move fast and keep evolving.”
She is now developing a restaurant boot camp that would cover GST registration, kitchen layouts and financial discipline, and working with a technology partner on a dashboard to unify accounting, procurement and staff scheduling. “Once you go through the course, you should ask yourself, ‘Do I still want to open?’” she said.
“The truth is, people who want to open a new store for the first time may have a great product, but they don’t have anywhere to learn.”
Kith’s children’s meals, parties and workshops had once become one of its fastest-growing revenue streams, but rising costs overwhelmed the concept. Jane’s design instincts—open layouts, modular furniture and a price point set at S$3.80 per cup in 2009—could not offset the squeeze. Her own frontline stints, she said, give her fresh insight into operational bottlenecks across the industry.
With industry contacts now referring distressed owners to her, Jane has become an informal adviser, turning one former Kith site at Spottiswoode Park Road into an Italian restaurant for the landlord. “All this seems kind of logical,” she said. “But some people are just overwhelmed.”
Related: Singapore