Business picking up in Singapore’s Little India precinct led by opening of multi-cuisine Food Village

The market is getting back to normal in Singapore’s popular Little India shopping and motel precinct which went through months of shutdown and then partial opening during the past two years of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It was very quiet then but now I am seeing people moving around and apparently the vibrancy among businesses is coming back,” said S. Prithi Kha, the marketing head of her family-owned 'The Banana Leaf Apolo' restaurant, rebranded during the pandemic into a 350-seat facility that opened on Monday in the precinct.

Mashuthoo Abdul Rahman, the Managing Director of Barakhath Restaurant Pte Ltd, is also confident of business picking up in the area.

“Business is coming back though slowly as we were affected by the pandemic. But with the government support and subsidy, we have managed well,” added Mashuthoo, who operates a restaurant amidst the 700-plus retail outlets offering Indian products.

Reflecting the confidence in business prospects, Kha’s family-owned rebranded restaurant opened with a pompous celebration led by an 18-man Lion Dance performance, a Chinese tradition in multi-national Singapore, as well as Thai and Indian cultural performances.

Coming out of the pandemic, 'The Banana Leaf Apolo' Managing Director C. Sankaranathan conceded that it was a challenge in building a family business. What started as a South Indian curry shop serving meals on banana leaves -- a food serving practice in southern states of India, Sankaranathan has grown the business into a 500+dish restaurant that serves North Indian, Indo-Chinese, East Asian, and Singapore signature dishes daily at the 12,000 sq ft set up with open kitchen showcasing food preparations.

“We are serving a full house daily to multi-ethnic groups as well as tourists who are ever ready for the taste of Indian food when in Singapore,'' said Sankaranathan, also the managing director of Apolo’s Food Village.

“Singapore is a food paradise and Indian restaurants are a hotspot for tourists,” said the 50-year-old who began working in the restaurant started by his father Chellappan S. Suppiah in 1974.

Sankaranathan has over 90 chefs, mostly from India, running his four-restaurant business.

“We have a brand and we are confident of continuing our food and beverage business in the future,” he said, adding that his 79-year-old father, who came from Tamil Nadu, is pleased to see the business being managed by his third-generation.

Sankaranathan said his wife S. Rajeswari has brought in special age-old Indian utensils and decor pieces from Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala, adding the Indian ambience to the Pan-Asian and multi-cuisine Apolo’s Food Village.

Indian actor S J Surya inaugurated the food village, joined by over a hundred well-wishers and patrons.

Meanwhile, Sankaranathan is in business expansion mode, joining his 25-year-old son S. Nirmal Raj in setting up a Korean restaurant soon, a riverside site for which is being prepared in Singapore’s Central Business District.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)