Executive Summary

Singapore’s renowned culinary landscape faces an unprecedented wave of closures in 2025, with monthly shutdowns reaching 307 establishments—the highest rate in recent years. This crisis affects all market segments, from traditional hawker stalls to Michelin-starred venues, driven by a toxic combination of escalating operational costs and declining consumer spending. The situation threatens Singapore’s identity as a regional food capital and raises questions about the long-term sustainability of its hospitality sector.

The Numbers Tell a Stark Story

The closure statistics reveal an accelerating crisis:

• 2025: 307 closures per month (current average)
• 2024: 254 closures per month
• 2023: ~230 closures per month
• 2022: ~230 closures per month

This represents a 33% increase from 2022-2023 levels to current rates. More significantly, the ratio of closures to new openings in 2024-2025 exceeds rates seen before and even during the COVID-19 pandemic, indicating actual sector contraction rather than mere turnover.

Root Causes: A Perfect Storm

Rising Operational Costs

Operators face simultaneous increases across all major expense categories:

Rent: Commercial property costs in Singapore remain among the highest globally, with landlords showing limited flexibility despite sector struggles.

Labor: Salary pressures continue as Singapore’s tight labor market and rising cost of living force wage increases. The hospitality sector, already challenged by labor shortages, must compete for workers.

Utilities: Energy and water costs have climbed, adding to overhead burdens.

Goods and Supplies: Food costs, beverage inventory, and other supplies have increased, squeezing already thin margins in an industry where profitability typically depends on volume.

Declining Consumer Spending

The demand side presents equally challenging dynamics. Wine RVLT’s experience illustrates the shift: after thriving during the 2022 post-pandemic “euphoria of opening up,” the establishment has operated in the red since June 2023. Customers are both fewer in number and spending less per visit.

This pattern reflects broader consumer behavior changes. Young professionals like Glenn Chew exemplify a new priority: travel to neighboring Southeast Asian countries where dining costs 30-40% less than Singapore. This substitution effect means tourism spending is directly cannibalizing local F&B revenue.

The post-COVID revenge spending that briefly buoyed the sector has clearly ended, replaced by more cautious consumption patterns as economic uncertainty grows.

Breadth of Impact: No Segment Spared

The crisis demonstrates unusual breadth, affecting establishments across all price points and concepts:

Budget Segment

Traditional hawker stalls, the bedrock of Singapore’s food culture and affordable dining options for residents, are closing. These typically operate on razor-thin margins and cannot easily absorb cost increases or revenue declines.

Mid-Market

Establishments like Wine RVLT, serving the crucial middle market, face existential threats. These venues lack both the elite clientele base of fine dining and the low overhead of hawker operations, making them particularly vulnerable.

Premium Dining

Even Michelin-starred restaurants have shuttered, including:

• Art di Daniele Sperindio
• Sommer
• Braci

These closures are particularly symbolic, as they represent establishments that achieved international recognition yet still couldn’t sustain operations.

Lifestyle Venues

Rooftop bar Smoke & Mirrors and similar concept-driven venues have also fallen victim, suggesting that unique experiences alone can’t overcome the fundamental economics.

Economic Context and Outlook

Maybank economist Brian Lee’s assessment that closures will remain elevated throughout 2025 carries significant weight. His analysis points to structural rather than cyclical issues—operating costs show no signs of moderating, and the consumer preference shift toward overseas travel appears entrenched.

Singapore’s small domestic market (6 million residents) means the sector relies heavily on both high per-capita spending from locals and tourist traffic. With locals redirecting spending abroad and regional competition for tourism intensifying, the revenue side faces sustained pressure.

The comparison to pandemic-era closure rates is particularly sobering. During COVID, closures were driven by a temporary external shock with an eventual end date. The current wave stems from fundamental economic misalignment between costs and revenues, suggesting a longer and more painful adjustment period.

Cultural and Heritage Implications

Food blogger Seth Lui articulates concerns that extend beyond economics to cultural identity. Singapore has cultivated a reputation as an Asian food capital, with its diverse culinary scene reflecting the island’s multicultural heritage and serving as both a tourist draw and source of national pride.

The risk Lui identifies is a homogenization of the landscape. As independent operators with unique concepts close, they’re likely to be replaced by:

• Fast-food chains with automated service models
• International franchise brands
• Generic concepts optimized for cost efficiency rather than culinary distinction

This pattern has played out in other high-cost cities globally. The establishments most vulnerable are often those most culturally significant—family-run businesses, innovative independent ventures, and venues preserving traditional cuisines. These typically lack the capital reserves and economies of scale that allow chains to weather downturns.

The loss of hawker stalls is particularly poignant. These venues represent Singapore’s culinary soul, places where generations have perfected specific dishes and where residents of all economic strata can access quality food. Their closure doesn’t just eliminate dining options; it severs living connections to culinary traditions.

Case Study: Wine RVLT

Alvin Goh’s Wine RVLT provides a detailed picture of the crisis at ground level. After nearly a decade establishing a natural wine and bar bites concept, Goh will not renew his August lease.

The timeline is instructive. Operating successfully through the pandemic and benefiting from the 2022 reopening surge, the business turned unprofitable in June 2023. For nearly two years since, Goh has been “topping up money” from personal funds to cover rent, salaries, and supplier payments.

This represents a common entrepreneur’s dilemma: having invested years building a brand and business, operators often subsidize losses hoping for a turnaround. Goh’s decision to finally close suggests he sees no near-term improvement—a sentiment likely shared by many peers.

Contrarian Perspectives: Grounds for Hope?

Jay Gray represents the optimistic minority. Opening Club Street Laundry in 2025 as his sixth venture over 11 years, Gray expresses confidence in Singapore’s market.

His philosophy centers on hospitality—believing that excellent service and customer experience can overcome economic headwinds. This perspective has merit. In challenging markets, establishments that create genuine value and connection with customers can thrive while others fail. The crisis may represent a Darwinian moment that eliminates weaker operators while those with superior concepts and execution survive.

However, Gray’s track record itself warrants examination. Six ventures in 11 years could indicate either entrepreneurial resilience or high turnover among his own establishments. The broader question remains whether exceptional hospitality can truly overcome a 33% increase in closure rates—or if even great operators will find the math increasingly difficult.

Policy and Industry Response

Notably absent from the article is any mention of government intervention or industry association initiatives to address the crisis. Singapore’s government historically takes an active role in strategic sectors, and food has both economic and cultural significance.

Potential policy responses could include:

• Rent relief or controls on commercial property increases
• Labor support through training subsidies or work visa adjustments
• Tax incentives for struggling F&B operators
• Marketing initiatives to redirect tourist spending or encourage local dining
• Support for heritage establishments deemed culturally significant

The absence of such discussion may indicate either that measures are being considered privately or that authorities view this as a market correction requiring no intervention.

Regional and Global Context

Singapore’s crisis doesn’t exist in isolation. The 30-40% cost differential that draws Singaporeans to neighboring countries for dining reflects broader Southeast Asian economic patterns. Cities like Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, and Jakarta offer compelling culinary experiences at fractions of Singapore’s costs.

This creates a challenging competitive dynamic. Singapore can’t easily compete on price, so it must maintain significant quality and experience advantages to justify premium pricing. Yet quality establishments are precisely those closing.

Globally, other high-cost cities have faced similar pressures. San Francisco, New York, London, and Hong Kong have all experienced waves of restaurant closures driven by cost-revenue mismatches. The typical outcome is a bifurcated market: chains and ultra-premium establishments survive while the middle is hollowed out.

Implications for Stakeholders

For Operators: The message is stark—survival requires either exceptional differentiation, a pivot to lower-cost models, or exit. The mid-market squeeze is real.

For Employees: Hospitality workers face job insecurity and potentially depressed wages as establishments compete for survival. Career hospitality professionals may need to consider relocating or switching sectors.

For Consumers: Short-term, closures reduce options and may drive remaining establishments to raise prices further, creating a negative spiral. Long-term, a reset might eventually produce a more sustainable ecosystem, though likely with less diversity.

For Property Owners: While they currently maintain high rents, a 33% reduction in tenant base threatens longer-term returns. Extended vacancies may ultimately force rent adjustments.

For Singapore: The reputational risk to the food capital brand is real. If the crisis continues, Singapore may lose its culinary distinctiveness, reducing both tourist appeal and quality of life for residents.

Conclusion: A Sector at an Inflection Point

Singapore’s F&B crisis of 2025 represents more than typical business cycle churn. The data, operator testimonies, and economic analysis all point to a sector fundamentally out of balance, with costs and revenues misaligned in ways that threaten sustainability.

The 307 monthly closures represent not just failed businesses but lost employment, eroded cultural heritage, and diminished quality of life. Each closure is a small tragedy—years of entrepreneurial effort, culinary craft, and community gathering spaces disappearing.

Whether this represents a temporary shakeout that will lead to a healthier equilibrium or the beginning of long-term decline depends largely on factors beyond individual operators’ control: macroeconomic conditions, property market dynamics, consumer confidence, and potentially policy interventions.

What seems clear is that Singapore’s culinary landscape of 2026 will look significantly different from that of 2024. The question is whether it will emerge leaner but intact, preserving its essential character—or whether the cost pressures and changing consumer behaviors will fundamentally transform what it means to dine in Singapore.

For now, establishments like Wine RVLT close their doors, and optimists like Jay Gray place new bets. The coming months will reveal which perspective proves correct, and whether Singapore’s reputation as a food capital can survive its most serious culinary crisis in recent memory.