Over 2,400 F&B Outlets Closed in Singapore. What Did the Survivors Do Differently?

Singapore Business Review recently reported that 2,431 F&B outlets have shut in Singapore, a figure that lines up with what you can observe just walking through any mall or neighbourhood. Empty shopfronts where a cafe used to be. The Straits Times' opinion section asked the same question this week: "Last orders: Why are so many Singapore eateries shutting down?" Their preview noted that the sector is generating more topline revenue, but productivity gains remain low and cost pressures are making businesses unsustainable.

The popular diagnosis is correct as far as it goes. Rents are high. Labour costs keep rising. Delivery platform commissions run 25 to 35 percent per order. Post-pandemic footfall in some locations never fully recovered. These are real pressures and they are not going away.

But the popular diagnosis misses something. Plenty of F&B businesses are operating under the same cost structure and staying open. Some are growing. So the question isn't really why the sector is under pressure: it's why some businesses survive those pressures and others don't.

The pattern that separates them is less obvious than rent or wages. It's about who owns their customer relationships and who doesn't.

The Platform Trap

Every F&B outlet in Singapore is on GrabFood or Foodpanda or both. That became table stakes during the pandemic, and it hasn't changed. But most outlets made a critical mistake during the delivery boom: they treated the platforms as customers, not channels.

A customer pays you. A channel connects you to customers. The difference matters enormously.

When you treat GrabFood as a customer, you optimise for their algorithms, accept their commission structure, and let them own the relationship with your diner. The diner doesn't know your restaurant. They know GrabFood. When they want the same dish again, they go back to GrabFood. Not your website. Not your Instagram. Not your WhatsApp broadcast. GrabFood.

The commission on every order is not just 25 to 35 percent of that transaction. It's also a permanent tax on your inability to reach that customer directly. Some restaurants have been paying that tax for five years without ever trying to reduce it.

The businesses that survived, and grew, treated the platforms as a discovery mechanism and then worked to convert platform customers into direct relationships. A loyalty stamp card visible at the counter. A QR code linking to a WhatsApp list for weekly specials. A "next time, order direct and save" note on the receipt. These are not complicated interventions. They require the belief that owning your customer list is worth the effort.

The Digital Gap Is Where Closures Begin

Walk through the online presence of most closed F&B businesses and you will find the same pattern. A Facebook page last updated in 2023. A Google Business Profile with no photos added in two years and reviews going unanswered. No website, or a website that hasn't been touched since it was built. No way for a customer who had a great experience to find them again through a search, because there's nothing for Google to index.

Meanwhile, the businesses that held on tend to have a basic but consistent digital presence. Not elaborate. Just maintained. A Google Business Profile with current opening hours, recent photos, and replied-to reviews. A few hundred Instagram followers who get posts a couple of times a week. A WhatsApp broadcast list used for slow-night promotions. Maybe a simple website with a menu and a direct ordering option.

None of this is expensive. All of it requires consistency.

The mistake is assuming that food quality and word-of-mouth are enough. They were, once. Now, a significant percentage of dining decisions begin on a phone: "coffee near Bishan MRT," "best chicken rice Tampines," "lunch place near me open now." If your business doesn't appear in those searches, you are invisible to customers who are actively looking for somewhere to eat in your neighbourhood.

What Sustainable F&B Businesses Actually Build

The operational side of survival (leaner menus, tighter cost management per dish, streamlined kitchen workflows) is necessary but not sufficient. The businesses that have built lasting resilience did that AND built digital infrastructure they own.

Here is what that looks like in practice.

A maintained Google Business Profile. This is the single highest-return digital action for any F&B business. Updated hours, recent food photos, a response to every review (positive and critical), accurate location and contact details. When someone searches for your type of cuisine in your neighbourhood, your Google Business Profile is often the first and only thing they see. If yours hasn't been touched since 2023, you are losing search-visible customers to competitors who maintain theirs.

A WhatsApp broadcast list built from foot traffic. Every time a diner has a positive experience at your restaurant, there is an opportunity to invite them into a direct channel. A simple sign at the table ("Join our regulars list for Tuesday specials" with a QR code linking to a WhatsApp opt-in) can build a few hundred engaged contacts over six months. Those contacts cost nothing to reach. When you have a slow Tuesday, a single broadcast to your regulars is more effective and less expensive than any paid promotion.

Consistent social media for local discovery. Instagram remains the primary food discovery platform for diners aged 25 to 45 in this market. The businesses that benefit from it post consistently: not viral content, just regular evidence that the restaurant is alive, the food looks good, and there's a reason to visit. Three posts a week, sustained over two years, compounds into a findable presence that passive advertising cannot replicate.

Direct ordering, even at small volume. A basic website with a direct ordering option, promoted to regulars via WhatsApp, can shift even 10 to 15 percent of orders off the platforms. On a business doing $50,000 in monthly revenue with 60 percent of sales coming through delivery platforms at 30 percent commission, shifting 15 percent of platform orders to direct saves roughly $1,350 per month. That covers a part-time salary. The savings compound as the direct ordering habit grows.

Reputation management through reviews. Google Maps is how many customers decide between two comparable options. A restaurant with 80 reviews averaging 4.3 stars that responds to every review will consistently win the click over a competitor with 120 reviews and no responses. Responding signals that the business is operating, listening, and worth trusting. It takes five minutes per response and has a measurable effect on how Google ranks the listing locally.

The Structural Difference

The F&B businesses that survive prolonged cost pressure share one structural characteristic: they are not entirely dependent on third-party platforms to reach their customers. They've built parallel channels, even small ones, that they own and control.

When GrabFood changes its algorithm or raises commissions again, a restaurant with a 500-person WhatsApp list and a consistent Google Maps presence has options. It can run a direct promotion. It can pull back on platform spend for a week. It can communicate with its loyal customers without paying a platform to do it.

The restaurant that built nothing outside the platforms has no options. It is entirely at the mercy of a cost structure it doesn't control.

This is why the F&B closures are not just a story about rising costs. They're also a story about digital dependency, specifically the dependency on renting customer relationships from platforms rather than owning them.

The intervention is not complicated. It is consistent. A Google Business Profile updated monthly. A WhatsApp list grown by 20 contacts per month. A social media presence that proves the business is still here. A website that captures some fraction of direct orders.

None of this reverses rent increases or platform commissions. But it reduces the vulnerability that makes those pressures unsurvivable.

---

If your F&B business relies primarily on delivery platforms and foot traffic with no owned digital channels, the sector's closures are a useful prompt to assess your position. Magnified works with restaurants and cafes to build social media presence for F&B, direct ordering and e-commerce setups, and websites built for local search. Talk to us about your digital setup.