After closing all the shops, the founder of Kith Café is helping other F&Bs to survive

Jane Hia spent 17 years building the cafe

Singapore’s F&B industry has been unforgiving over the past few years, with rising costs, weak consumer spending, and an increasing number of restaurant closures.

Among the dead is a home cafe Kith Café.

At its peak, the business operated 12 stores. Today, they have all closed down, with the last two cafes in Marina Square and New Bahru ceasing to operate earlier this year.

But for founder Jane Hia, the story doesn’t end there.

Instead of retiring from the industry after looking at his business contract, he’s taking what he’s learned from 17 years of building Kith and helping other hard-working F&B workers avoid the same fate.

Kith Café started as a small, wallless coffee joint

Kith Café first opened its doors in 2009 as a small hole-in-the-wall coffee joint near Robertson Quay, just as Singapore’s cafe scene was taking off.

The concept was born from Jane’s love of food and design, inspired by a student exchange program in Milan during her time at the National University of Singapore.

His design background influenced everything from Kith’s open design to his modular furniture, but running a cafe required learning an entirely different skill set, from drawing espresso and pricing menus to managing payroll and logistics.

One of his first business decisions was to place Kith coffee between local coffee and international chains such as Starbucks, each cup costs S$3.80.

The formula worked.

Over the next ten years, Kith grew steadily, eventually expanding to 12 stores by 2023 and employing more than 80 full-time employees and about 100 part-time employees.

As Kith’s first customers grew up and started families, business grew alongside them. The cafe launched children’s meals in 2018 before expanding into birthday parties, event planning and catering.

Instead of just renting a place, Kith became what Jane described as a one stop solution for parents, organizing activities, games, cakes and food under one roof. The business later added children’s bentos, cookie baking sessions and weekend workshops that included pizza making, pasta making, pottery and even robotics.

At one point, Jane described the children’s division as one of Kith’s fastest-growing and highest-value income streams.

Despite these efforts, Kith is not immune to the pressures facing Singapore’s F&B sector.

The post-pandemic reality hit hard

According to Jane, the hope that many had after COVID-19 did not materialize. Instead, businesses, including Kith, have been hit by rising labor costs, rising ingredient prices and soft consumer spending.

The chain gradually began to close as the cars weakened.

Among its closures was its West Coast outlet, which ceased operations in Jan 2026 after owner Andy Lim reportedly lost between S$70,000 and S$90,000 in his first year. Although the place started to make a profit in its last months, Jane said that Lim eventually decided to close it down for personal reasons.

Some stores have been put on hold due to poor footfall, and Jane previously shared that the company was reviewing and refreshing Kith’s idea.

Thinking about the F&B workplace, he told the Business Times last year:

This cafe season is tougher than COVID-19. It’s not enough to be fashionable or Instagrammable. You have to move fast and keep improving.

Jane Hi

Turning hard-earned knowledge into new business

Rather than leaving the industry altogether, Jane found herself mentoring other F&B operators.

After spending years overseeing everything from maintenance and staffing to purchasing and retail operations, he is now helping struggling businesses turn a profit, according to a recent report. Straits Times the subject.

Earlier this year, he was engaged by a ship owner to set up a restaurant, cafe and KTV lounge. His responsibilities extended beyond menu development—he oversaw renovations, designed workflows and implemented payment systems.

Industry contacts have also started referring struggling restaurant owners to him.

For one client, Jane pointed out that moving to larger but cheaper buildings would improve profits quickly. He also helped improve staffing and hired a new chef.

“This all seems to make sense,” he said. “But some people just get frustrated.”

Besides strategy, he uses his old network of home owners, suppliers, accountants, contractors and real estate agents to negotiate the best deals for homeowners.

He is also helping to convert one of the former Kith Café buildings on Spottiswoode Park Road into a new Italian restaurant after it came to the landlord.

Interestingly, Jane has returned to a leading role. From time to time he finds temporary jobs using the staffing platform Staffie—allowing him to see how different businesses work and giving him new insights into service levels, workflows and operational challenges across the industry.

Hope is not a strategy

Having lived through both rapid expansion and painful contraction, Jane faces the realities of today’s market.

His biggest lesson? IF&B is a numbers game.

Without a clear cost benefit and direct funding, even a good idea may not survive. And if the math doesn’t work anymore, hoping that the business will eventually succeed is not a strategy.

Hope is a double-edged sword. People are waiting, thinking that things will turn around. If the numbers don’t change, there is no change.

Jane Hi

Looking ahead, Jane hopes to create a boot camp that teaches the practical aspects of opening a restaurant, from government regulations and GST registration to kitchen design and financial planning.

“When you finish reading, you have to 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 there is nowhere to read it.”

He is also working with a technology company to develop a dashboard that integrates accounting, procurement, labor costs and planning into a real-time platform for food businesses.

Jane is approachable janehia.com.

On the home page of his website in larger font are these words: “When F&B feels too heavy to carry alone.”

• Read other articles we’ve written about Singapore businesses here.

Featured Image Credit: Jane Hia via LinkedIn/ James Tai via Google Updates