Singapore’s Beverage Container Return Scheme (BCRS) has been running since 1 April 2026, but many restaurant operators still haven’t registered for the Return Right F&B Scheme — and with it, a $500 one-time incentive from NEA that expires on 30 September 2026. That’s one month away. What is the Return […]
Ernest Lim
33 posts
If you run a restaurant in Singapore and you still take reservations through a website form, you’ve probably noticed the same thing: a lot of people message you on WhatsApp anyway. They skip the form entirely. They find your number somewhere — Google, Instagram, a friend’s recommendation — and they […]
If you run more than one F&B outlet in Singapore, you already know the problem. You update the price of a dish at your main branch, then spend the next hour calling or messaging your other locations to make sure they’ve done the same. Someone forgets. A customer gets charged […]
A CRM for an upscale restaurant in Singapore is not the same as one for a casual dining chain or a food court stall. The mechanics are different. The tone is different. What members expect in return is different. If you bolt a mass-market loyalty programme onto a fine dining […]
Most Singapore restaurant owners think of their CRM as a loyalty points tracker. Points in, points out. Customers earn, customers redeem, and you hope they come back. It works — but stored value works better. If you have not added a stored value system to your CRM, you are leaving […]
Getting customers to join your loyalty programme sounds simple. In practice, it is one of the most frustrating parts of running a restaurant CRM in Singapore. You invest in a membership system. You train your staff to ask. But at the counter, during a busy service, with a queue forming […]
Your POS system generates a report every single day. Most Singapore restaurant operators glance at total sales, maybe check if the number looks right, and close the tab. That is a missed opportunity — and in a margin-thin business, missed opportunities add up. The data sitting in your POS is […]
In Part 1, I wrote about what happened on 9 August 2025 — the ransom note in the database, the team that gave up their National Day to come back to the office, the customers calling a hotline we could barely keep up with, and the fear that gripped me […]
Yesterday was National Day. For most Singaporeans, it means fireworks, red and white, and a rare public holiday. For me, it marks something else: exactly one year since the worst day in Aptsys’s history. On 9 August 2025, while the rest of Singapore was celebrating, we were hit by a […]
If you’re a Singapore restaurant operator trying to grow your off-premise revenue, you’re facing a version of the same decision: do you list on GrabFood, foodpanda or Deliveroo, or do you build your own online ordering channel? And if you’re already on a delivery platform, do you actually need your […]
Table turnover is one of the few levers a Singapore restaurant can pull to increase revenue without raising prices, adding seats, or hiring more staff. A table that cycles in 55 minutes instead of 80 minutes doesn’t just feel more efficient — over a dinner service, it can mean one […]
If your restaurant signed up with a payment provider because the rate looked unbeatable, it’s worth asking one question: do you actually know why it was so cheap? For a lot of Singapore F&B merchants, the answer traces back to a merchant category code (MCC) they never chose and probably […]
You ran a membership sign-up promotion. Fifty customers joined. Three months later, you’re looking at the numbers and most of them haven’t been back. The loyalty programme is technically running — but it’s not doing what it’s supposed to do. This is one of the most common problems with restaurant […]
Every Singapore restaurant owner who takes reservations knows this routine. A message comes in at 11pm: “Hi can book for 4 pax Saturday 7pm?” You’re asleep. You reply in the morning. They’ve moved on, or booked somewhere else. Or you do reply — and spend the next ten minutes going […]
Walk into most Singapore F&B back offices and you’ll find the same pattern: one system for the POS, another for QR ordering, a third for CRM and loyalty, a fourth for the kitchen display, and sometimes a fifth just for reservations or delivery. Each tool does its job well enough […]
Contactless payment stopped being a differentiator for Singapore restaurants some time ago, even if a lot of marketing still treats it like one. Tap-to-pay, QR code payment, and mobile wallets are now the default expectation, not a feature guests notice or choose a restaurant for. If your ordering flow doesn’t […]
What Is a Shared Cart and How Does It Help Your Restaurant? A shared cart is a cloud-based cart that every guest at the same table can see and add to from their own phone, before the order is sent to the kitchen. Instead of each diner ordering in isolation, […]
QR Ordering Complaints: How to Handle Guest Pushback and Reduce Order Errors QR ordering complaints are the number one reason Singapore restaurant owners hesitate before switching from a fully staffed ordering model. “My regulars will hate it.” “Older customers can’t use it.” “We’ll get more wrong orders, not fewer.” These […]
Restaurant member pricing is one of the simplest, most effective ways for a Singapore F&B business to turn one-time diners into regulars. The idea is straightforward: members pay a lower price than walk-in customers on selected items or across the whole menu. But behind that simple offer sits a powerful […]
Selling VIP memberships is one of the fastest ways for a Singapore restaurant to generate instant cash flow while locking in future visits. Instead of waiting for customers to come back, you ask your best customers to pay upfront for a membership that gives them more value than it costs […]