The Secretary-General of Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) Dr Chee Soon Juan announced that the operations of his café, Orange & Teal, will be temporarily suspended during Phase 2 (Heightened Alert), barely a month since its opening.
Since no dine-ins are permitted at F&B establishments during Phase 2 (Heightened Alert), Dr Chee said in a Facebook post on Thursday (22 July) that they will be offering takeaway orders to patrons instead.
He added that no staff will be laid off during this period.
“At Orange & Teal, we’re barely a month old and we have to suspend operations. But we will not let any of our staff go. Like others, we’ll pivot to offering takeaway food. We’re open from today (11am to 8pm) for folks to come in and order lunch, dinner and everything in between for takeaways,” he said.
In the beginning of June, the chief of SDP announced that he will be opening his own café at Rochester Mall, along with his wife Dr Huang Chih-Mei. The eatery officially opened its door for guests on 25 June.
In Thursday’s Facebook post, Dr Chee pointed out that the café will serve its beef brisket on Friday, instead of the usual Thursday as the sudden imposition of no dining-in rule has caused them to make the changes.
Given the new circumstances, Dr Chee has urged the people of Singapore to continue supporting the café until it will be able to open again in August.
“O&T was set up to have people dine in and experience the ambience. It’s a blow now that you can’t dine in. But that’s ok, we’ll adapt and continue to grow even in the most challenging circumstances. Like the SDP, pah see buay zhao,” he said.
He added, “So please do your part to keep F&B joints across the island to stay afloat. Order in or buy takeaway. If we rally together in such trying times, we can help minimise pain for workers at F&B joints, especially the mom-and-pop stalls at hawker centres, Give them your support.”
“The decision-making process by the young ministers are lamentable”
In the post, Dr Chee also lamented the decision-making process of the ministers.
“After bouncing around, relaxing-then-tightening, opening-then-closing F&B outlets – all this within a month – the govt has now stopped dining-in for the next few weeks,” he said.
He continued, “The decision-making process by these young ministers are lamentable. But that’s a discussion for a future occasion.”
He went on to note that many outlets in Singapore will not be able to handle the “withering measures”, forcing owners to shut down their establishments and employees be laid off.
On Tuesday (20 July), the Multi-Ministry Taskforce (MTF) announced that it will rollback the country’s control measures to Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) due to the growing number of COVID-19 community cases.
Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) kick starts from Thursday (22 July) through 18 August 2021 and will supersede those that were introduced on 19 July 2021.
Just a month earlier (10 June), the Government said that it will return to Phase 3 (Heightened Alert) of its reopening from 14 June onwards after the number of community cases saw a reduction.
