Sticky Fingers, Bitter Lessons

The new year began with a rude awakening.

While most were ringing in January with optimism and champagne, we were dealing with theft — and the accompanying cocktail of disappointment, betrayal, panic and the very sapping task of reshuffling rosters and rehiring staff. The weeks that followed left us drained, and at times, quietly defeated — the exact opposite of what a new year is supposed to usher in.

We kept the doors open on grit alone. Thankfully, some robust systems were already in place, allowing us to strip down the menu, tighten workflows and still keep the beers flowing — even with a malnourished workforce behind the bar.

If there’s a takeaway worth sharing, it’s this: the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. In hindsight, the employees involved had prior patterns of breached trust. And perhaps this one’s on us — was it optimism, or naïveté, to believe people will change?

So we’ll leave you with a few questions:

• Where do you draw the line between giving second chances and protecting your business?

• Do you trust by default — or something people have to keep earning, repeatedly? Innocent till proven guilty, or guilty till proven guilty?

• When you’ve invested so much time and care into building teams, how do you know when those efforts are still serving the business — and when they’re quietly pulling you away from it?

  
  

No neat conclusions here. Just lessons earned the hard way.

Come Huat with Us

If there’s one thing the Chinese do brilliantly, it’s turning food into fortune.

Pineapples (ong lai) to usher in prosperity.
Mandarins (kam) for wealth and luck.
Fish (yu) for abundance and surplus year after year.

So naturally, we’re gonna do what we do best — put it on tap. Starting this week, we’re pouring a lineup that leans heavily into auspicious flavours:

• Pineapple 🍍 Hazy IPA

• Kumquat 🍊 Cider

• Pomelo Witbier

• Orange Roselle Lager

• Peach🍑 Beer

• Roselle 🌺 Sour

  
  

And because fortune should never be too serious, spin our Beer of Fortune when you’re in — you might just win something to start the year right.

Swing by, drink well and huat all the way!

Belief, in small doses

If there’s a counterweight to all the heaviness, it’s this.

In the midst of it all, people have continued to show up for us — sometimes literally, sometimes in ways we didn’t expect. They’ve trusted us with their ideas, their events, their communities. From hosting unconventional lectures and thoughtful gatherings like Reel Connections, Remedial Kids to being looped into placemaking conversations around Jalan Besar, to neighbours connecting us with stakeholders who care deeply about this area we call second home. Customers who show up at the bar and help us clean tables and engage other guests when we’re slammed, offer their expertise and network to guide our decisions, the instances are countless.

These gestures matter. They remind us that while trust can be fragile, it’s still present and it can also be rebuilt — quietly, generously, and often through small acts of belief. And for that, we’re deeply thankful.