Jane Hia spent 17 years building the café chain
Singapore’s F&B industry has been unforgiving over the past few years, with rising costs, weaker consumer spending, and an increasing number of restaurant closures.
Among the casualties is homegrown café chain Kith Café.
At its peak, the business operated 12 outlets. Today, they’ve all closed, with the final two cafés at Marina Square and New Bahru ceasing operations earlier this year.
But for founder Jane Hia, the story doesn’t end there.
Instead of stepping away from the industry after watching her own business contract, she’s taking what she learnt from 17 years of building Kith and helping other struggling F&B operators avoid the same fate.
Kith Café started as a small, hole-in-the-wall coffee joint
Kith Café first opened its doors in 2009 as a small hole-in-the-wall coffee joint along Robertson Quay, just as Singapore’s café scene was beginning to take off.
The concept was born from Jane’s love for food and design, inspired by a student exchange programme in Milan during her time at the National University of Singapore.
Her design background influenced everything from Kith’s open layouts to its modular furniture, but running a café required learning an entirely different skill set, from pulling espresso shots and pricing menus to payroll management and logistics.
One of her earliest business decisions was positioning Kith’s coffee between traditional kopi and international chains like Starbucks, pricing each cup at S$3.80.
The formula worked.
Over the next decade, Kith expanded steadily, eventually growing to 12 outlets by 2023 and employing more than 80 full-time staff alongside about 100 part-timers.
As Kith’s original customers grew older and started families, the business evolved alongside them. The café introduced children’s meals in 2018 before expanding into birthday parties, event planning and catering.
Instead of simply renting out space, Kith became what Jane described as a one-stop solution for parents, organising activities, games, cakes and food under one roof. The business later added children’s bentos, cookie-baking sessions and weekend workshops featuring pizza-making, pasta-making, pottery and even robotics.
At one point, Jane described the kids segment as one of Kith’s fastest-growing and highest-value revenue streams.
Despite these efforts, Kith wasn’t immune to the pressures facing Singapore’s F&B sector.
The post-pandemic reality hit hard
According to Jane, the optimism many operators had after COVID-19 never materialised. Instead, businesses, including Kith, were hit by soaring manpower costs, rising ingredient prices and softer consumer spending.
The chain gradually began closing locations as traffic weakened.
Among the closures was its West Coast outlet, which ceased operations in Jan 2026 after franchisee Andy Lim reportedly suffered losses of between S$70,000 and S$90,000 during his first year. Although the outlet had become profitable in its final months, Jane said Lim eventually decided to close it for personal reasons.
Other outlets were suspended due to weak footfall, with Jane previously sharing that the company was reviewing and refreshing Kith’s concept.
Reflecting on the F&B operating environment, she told the Business Times last year:
This era for cafés is harder than during COVID-19. It’s not enough to be trendy or Instagrammable. You have to move fast and keep evolving.
Jane Hia
Turning hard-earned experience into a new business
Rather than leaving the industry altogether, Jane has found herself becoming an adviser to other F&B operators.
After spending years overseeing everything from renovations and staffing to procurement and operations across multiple outlets, she’s now helping struggling businesses become profitable, according to a recent Straits Times article.
Earlier this year, she was engaged by the owner of a cruise ship to set up its onboard restaurant, café and KTV lounge. Her responsibilities extended beyond menu development—she oversaw renovations, designed operational workflows and implemented payment systems.
Industry contacts have also begun referring struggling restaurant owners to her.
For one client, Jane identified that relocating to larger but cheaper premises would immediately improve profitability. She also helped optimise manpower scheduling and recruited a new head chef.
“All this seems kind of logical,” she said. “But some people are just overwhelmed.”
Beyond strategy, she taps into her long-standing network of landlords, suppliers, accountants, contractors and property agents to negotiate better deals for operators.
She’s also helping transform one of Kith Café’s former premises at Spottiswoode Park Road into a new Italian restaurant after being approached by the landlord.
Interestingly, Jane has returned to working frontline shifts. She occasionally picks up casual serving jobs through staffing platform Staffie—it allows her to observe how different businesses operate and gives her fresh perspectives on service standards, workflows and operational challenges across the industry.
Hope isn’t a strategy
Having gone through both rapid expansion and painful contraction, Jane is realistic about today’s market.
Her biggest lesson? F&B is a numbers game.
Without a clear cost advantage and disciplined finances, even a great concept may not survive. And when the maths no longer works, hoping the business will eventually pick up isn’t a strategy.
Hope is a double-edged sword. People hang on, thinking things will turn around. If the maths doesn’t change, there is no turnaround.
Jane Hia
Looking ahead, Jane hopes to create a boot camp that teaches practical aspects of opening a restaurant, from government regulations and GST registration to kitchen layouts and financial planning.
“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.”
She’s also collaborating with a technology company to develop a dashboard that consolidates accounting, procurement, staffing costs and scheduling into a single real-time platform for food businesses.
Jane is reachable at janehia.com.
On the homepage of her consultancy website in large font are these words: “When F&B feels too heavy to carry alone.”
- Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.
Featured Image Credit: Jane Hia via LinkedIn/ James Tai via Google Reviews
