If you were to ask any Singaporean on the street what their first part-time job was, most would tell you that they worked in a cafe or for an F&B brand.
While many see that as an opportunity to earn extra pocket money, Daphne Goh, Managing Director of Atlas Coffeehouse, found comfort amid the hustle and bustle of lunch hours.
“Speciality coffee has always held a special place in my heart, and when I was given the opportunity to be a barista, it was all I wanted to do,” said Daphne.
Since then, she has grown a cafe empire in the past decade. However, with the cafe scene in Singapore becoming more saturated, what does it take for a brand to thrive?
She started her first cafe fresh out of university
After graduating with a Bachelor’s in Business Management with a Marketing major, Daphne invested S$200,000 from her own savings, her husband, Lionel Ang, and her mum to open her first cafe in 2013—Assembly Coffee along Evans Road at Bukit Timah.
Unlike today, cafes and brunch were not the go-to options, and Assembly Coffee was competing with Mr Prata, who sold S$0.80 kopi and S$1 prata then.
As it was her first business venture, Daphne shared that she held extremely high expectations for herself and the business. “Everything had to be executed with precision and to perfection.”
However, that led to her setting unrealistic goals, self-doubt, and experiencing burnout.
“It was a steep learning curve, but [it is] one that I will not exchange for anything in the world because it has moulded me into who I am and where the business stands today,” said Daphne.
In the first six months after opening, the cafe worked to connect with residents at Bukit Timah, where they educated the public on their offerings. However, she had to close the cafe in 2016 when the same Mr Prata outlet won the bid to be the sole F&B brand in the compound.
Despite the closure, it did not deter Daphne from opening another cafe—Atlas Coffeehouse—in the same year, just down the road from where Assembly Coffee used to be.
With a bigger space and a proper kitchen, she and her team expanded their food offerings, curated according to their customers’ feedback.
Our goal is to be a place where you wouldn’t hesitate to bring your grandparents out for brunch because there is always something for everyone. Food like ours should be simple. Nothing fancy. Approachable and satisfying.
Daphne Goh, Managing Director of Atlas Coffeehouse
Building a cafe empire
Since then, Daphne went on to grow her empire of cafe concepts and coffee businesses each year, and if you haven’t noticed, all the cafes’ names are celestial and explorer-themed.
As she introduced new brands each year, the F&B industry was heavily affected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many businesses were restricted to takeaways, and some brands, unfortunately, had to lay off staff and close their shutters.
Fortunately for Daphne, she shared that she could keep her staff during that tumultuous period, even giving them year-end bonuses despite the economic climate.
However, the pandemic also doubled their monthly rental, leaving her no choice but to close Lunar Coffee Brewers, located at Shenton Way, in June 2023.
“[The] key lesson learnt is always to have a backup plan and to be 10 steps ahead. The doubling of rent was expected, especially after COVID. Closure was expected,” explained Daphne.
She added that each closure and opening is “unique to each entity and its location”, to which the team determines if there is a market gap that they could fill.
While the company opted for “the safer route” in positioning its brands, in the case of Moonchild, they wanted it to be a “young, trendy and cool” version of Atlas Coffeehouse. “It’s almost as if Atlas is the mother of Moonchild: Young and trendy, yet reliable and approachable,” shared Daphne.
The team also launched their retail and merchandise brand, Sinister Coffee & Goods, in 2021 to add another dimension to the cafe experience.
In addition to offering baked goods such as sourdough loaves, whole cakes, brownies and cookies, the brand sells its whole coffee beans wholesale and offers coffee subscription programmes.
Slow and steady wins the race
At this point, you might question why Daphne would open multiple brands instead of focusing on growing one.
One thing led to another and it has been a decade. Each brand is unique to its location which therefore has a different menu. We’d like to think that because we have been around for a while now, people will eventually find out if the project is under the same group.
While it is easier to market as ‘esteemed by Atlas Coffeehouse’, we prefer to work with a blank canvas for each project so that we can have the creative freedom to curate, without the restriction of being associated to an existing brand, even if the brand is ours.
Daphne Goh, Managing Director of Atlas Coffeehouse
That said, there were moments when Daphne doubted herself when a new concept was experiencing slow pick-up rates in a new neighbourhood and added that they chose to “bite the bullet” and not pay for advertising.
Besides promoting their cafes on social media, the business relies on word of mouth to gain traction in the neighbourhood, which is old school, but to Daphne, it is a “slow but steady and sustainable climb”.
Daphne also pointed out that hiring talent was difficult due to the stigma placed on the industry as “the last resort”. Not only that, she said that her “painfully strict” and “hard to be around” persona made her unapproachable—so much so that it was difficult to find people to take a shift as she was “so scary”.
The sad truth is a cliche. You can’t please everybody and it’s ok to be at 80%. I’ve learnt to settle for 80% at 100% of the time than 100%, at 80% of the time.
Daphne Goh, Managing Director of Atlas Coffeehouse
Aside from changing her leadership style, she focused on nurturing employees who stayed and promoting them internally, as it allows people passionate about the industry like herself to keep their jobs and sustain the business.
As the Singaporean cafe industry becomes increasingly competitive and saturated, Daphne expressed her commitment to continue putting her employees first to sustain the business, adding that without them, the business will be unable to flourish.
Featured Image Credit: Atlas Coffeehouse