F&B Scaling Back? Digital Marketing Keeps You Visible

Kith Café didn’t disappear—but it did shrink. After 16 years in Singapore’s café scene, the brand is reportedly down to two outlets, from a peak of 10. One franchisee shared that he lost about S$70,000–S$90,000 over a year at a West Coast outlet, even after the business started showing signs of improvement late in 2025.

If you run a café, restaurant, bakery, or takeaway brand, this story probably doesn’t feel distant. Singapore’s F&B market is crowded, costs are sticky, and customer attention shifts fast. The hard part isn’t opening. It’s staying consistently chosen.

This post is part of our “Singapore SME Digital Marketing” series, and I’m going to take a clear stance: when footfall weakens, your digital engine has to compensate—or your outlets will carry the full burden. Scaling back doesn’t have to mean fading away, but it does mean you need a tighter, smarter system for demand generation, retention, and operational efficiency.

What Kith Café’s scaling back signals for Singapore F&B SMEs

Answer first: Kith’s contraction highlights a simple reality—outlets aren’t growth; demand is. When demand drops, fixed costs don’t politely follow.

Kith Café’s journey is also a reminder that longevity and brand recognition don’t automatically protect you. The brand had strong positioning early on (coffee priced between kopi and Starbucks), thoughtful design, and later built a family-friendly revenue stream (kids’ meals, birthday events, workshops). Even then, weak footfall appears to have forced closures.

For SMEs, the lesson isn’t “don’t expand.” It’s this:

• Physical presence is fragile. Lease, manpower, and utilities don’t wait for “better months.”
• Customer traffic is now partially digital. People decide where to eat before they walk out.
• Concept refreshes are easier when you own attention. If you rely only on walk-ins, you’re always reacting late.

If you’ve found yourself saying, “Business is okay when it’s busy, but quiet weeks kill us,” that’s not just operations. That’s a marketing system problem.

Footfall is a lagging indicator—build a demand system instead

Answer first: The most reliable way to stabilise revenue is to replace unpredictable walk-ins with predictable reach, repeat customers, and trackable campaigns.

In Singapore, many F&B owners still treat marketing as posting when there’s time. That’s backwards. Marketing is the job that creates the time.

The 3 numbers you should track weekly (even if you hate analytics)

You don’t need fancy dashboards. Start with three numbers:

1. Reach → how many people saw you this week (Meta/IG/TikTok views, Google impressions)
2. Intent → how many took an action (profile visits, website clicks, “Get directions”, WhatsApp taps)
3. Conversion → bookings/orders/redemptions (table reservations, catering enquiries, voucher redemptions)

If reach is high but intent is low, your content isn’t compelling. If intent is high but conversion is low, your offer or flow is broken (menu clarity, pricing, friction in ordering, slow response time).

Replace “posting” with campaigns that have a job

A campaign isn’t a poster. It’s a repeatable, measurable push.

Here are campaign formats that consistently work for Singapore SMEs:

• Off-peak rescue: Mon–Thu set lunch, 2–5pm coffee+pastry bundles, early bird breakfast sets
• Neighbourhood capture: ads and content targeted within 1–3km radius (especially for heartland outlets)
• Occasion marketing: CNY reunion catering, Valentine’s set menus, Ramadan break-fast bundles, year-end office parties
• Return triggers: bounce-back vouchers (e.g., “come back in 14 days”), birthday month perks

Right now (January 2026), you’re coming off year-end spending and CNY planning is already underway. If you don’t have a CNY catering / gifting / office snack campaign pencilled in, you’re donating sales to competitors who do.

Kith’s “kids segment” is a clue: product-market fit can be engineered

Answer first: Kith’s family and kids workshops show that repositioning works—when the offer is specific and marketed consistently.

One of the more interesting parts of Kith Café’s story is how it evolved with its customers. As early customers became parents, Kith introduced kids’ meals, then expanded into birthday parties, activities, and weekend workshops (cookie/pizza/pasta making). Jane Hia reportedly described the kids segment as a “high-ticket” contributor.

That’s not just a cute add-on. It’s strategic:

• Kids parties are high intent (parents are actively searching)
• They’re higher basket size than casual café visits
• They create shareable moments (photos, parent groups, school chats)

How to market a “high-ticket” segment without burning your team

Here’s the approach I’ve found most SMEs can execute without hiring a big agency team:

• One landing page per offer: “Kids Party Package”, “Corporate Bento Catering”, “Workshop Weekends”
• One primary channel: usually Meta (Facebook/Instagram) still converts well for parents in Singapore
• One conversion path: WhatsApp or a simple form, not DMs scattered across platforms
• One follow-up automation: instant acknowledgement + brochure + available slots

If you’re doing events, catering, or workshops and still handling enquiries manually with copy-paste messages, you’re losing leads. Not because you’re bad at service—because speed wins.

The digital basics most F&B brands still get wrong (and how to fix them)

Answer first: Most F&B SMEs don’t need more content—they need clean search presence, fast response, and a retention loop.

Here’s a practical checklist you can act on this week.

1) Google Business Profile: treat it like your second storefront

If someone searches “cafe near me” or your brand name, Google decides whether you look alive.

Do this:

• Update opening hours (especially during CNY/PH)
• Add 10–15 recent photos (food, menu, seating, storefront)
• Post weekly updates (promo, seasonal items)
• Reply to reviews (even the short ones)

A neglected profile quietly reduces “Get directions” clicks—aka footfall.

2) Menu clarity: your menu is your most important sales page

Most menus fail digitally because they’re designed for printing, not decision-making.

Fix it:

• Show top 6–10 items first (best sellers, bundles, signature dishes)
• Include clear prices (no “market price” ambiguity online)
• Add 3-5 word descriptors (“smoky”, “spicy”, “less sweet”)
• Make it readable on mobile in under 10 seconds

3) Response time: install a “lead catcher” so you don’t miss money

If you run catering, events, or bookings, set up:

• WhatsApp auto-reply with operating hours + “send date/pax/budget” prompt
• A simple enquiry form that triggers an email/WhatsApp notification
• A saved reply bank for FAQs (pricing, halal status, allergens, lead time)

For many SMEs, this alone increases enquiry-to-confirmation rates because it reduces the drop-off from slow replies.

4) Retention: the cheapest growth is repeat visits

A café that relies only on new customers is always under pressure.

Simple retention loop:

• Collect phone/email at checkout (with consent) via QR
• Offer a small instant reward (e.g., free add-on next visit)
• Send one message every 2–4 weeks (not daily spam)

If you have 1,000 customers in your list and even 5% return each month, that’s 50 visits you didn’t have to pay ads for.

A practical “scale-back” playbook: stay profitable with fewer outlets

Answer first: If you’re reducing outlets (or pausing expansion), the goal is to protect brand demand while tightening operations—not to go quiet.

Here’s a no-nonsense plan you can adapt.

Step 1: Choose one flagship offer per outlet

Each outlet should be known for one thing:

• “fast weekday lunch under $15”
• “family café with kids activities”
• “coffee and pastries for remote workers”
• “corporate catering specialist”

When everything is “for everyone,” your ads, content, and signage get vague. Vague doesn’t convert.

Step 2: Concentrate marketing spend where people can actually visit

If you’re down to fewer outlets, reduce wasted targeting:

• Geo-target within 1–5km
• Exclude areas you can’t serve efficiently
• Run ads that explicitly state location (“2 minutes from ___ MRT”)

Step 3: Build B2B to smooth out consumer volatility

Kith reportedly planned to grow B2B cookie sales for corporate and large-scale events. That’s smart because B2B gives you:

• predictable volume
• fewer transactions, higher value
• longer relationships

Start with 3 packages (simple wins):

• Office snack boxes (10–30 pax)
• Event catering (50–200 pax)
• Festive gifting bundles (CNY/Deepavali/Christmas)

Step 4: Make your concept refresh visible online first

If you’re refreshing your concept, test digitally before rebuilding everything:

• Run 2-week limited-time menus
• Promote bundles and collect feedback
• Watch what people save, click, and reorder

Let the data choose the “new concept,” not your gut.

“This era for cafés is harder than during COVID-19… You have to move fast and keep evolving.” — as quoted from Kith Café founder Jane Hia in the source coverage

That’s true. And “move fast” is much easier when your marketing system is already running.

What to do next (if you’re an SME owner reading this)

Kith Café’s story isn’t just about closures. It’s about what happens when a brand built over years collides with a market that changes monthly. Singapore F&B is unforgiving, but it’s not random. Customers still buy—they just buy from the brand that stays top-of-mind, easy to find, and easy to order from.

If you want one action for next week: audit your customer journey from Google search → menu → enquiry/order → follow-up. Time it. Count the steps. Remove friction.

Scaling back doesn’t have to mean retreating. It can be a reset—if you keep your digital presence loud, your offers clear, and your lead handling tight. When you look at your own business right now, what’s the weakest link: visibility, conversion, or retention?