The Beginnings & Ownership
Mission - S(he)brews Cafe Owner Linda Isaac is an Engineer by training. Started in 2011 with her friend & founder of S(he)brews Kitchen, Linda Isaac's mission for S(he)brews Cafe was to work with girls & young women & to empower them with practical life skills through vocational training such as Baking Courses & Barista Training Courses.
Ownership - Currently Linda Isaac is the sole owner of S(he)brews Cafe and this cafe is the only brand she is running now. Linda aims to bring the cafe culture to various community in the heartlands when her S(he)brews Cafe brand is more established. Her vision is to see her cafes become a lifestyle culture in time to come, so one can enjoy a great cup of espresso in the heartlands without having to travel far to city or town areas.
Location - S(he)brews Cafe is located at 365 Commonwealth Avenue, housed within the Queenstown Community Centre in the heartland, beside the MDIS College & in close proximity to many neighbourhood schools. With many students & staff from MDIS patronizing the Cafe here during lunch hours, the cafe's menu was priced to ensure they are within the affordability range of the students. Hence many of the lunch sets are below $10.
Positioning - The cafe is positioned as a casual dining, slow food cafe where cafe owner Linda Isaac wants her customers to take their time to eat & enjoy their food. S(he)brews Cafe is not a franchise brand, but is an original brand that Linda Isaac set up & is in the midst of being trade-marked.
Culinary Influences - Though Linda Isaac does not come from the F&B industry, she worked part-time in the F&B industry during the school holidays in the 1980's to 1990's. At a tender age, Linda has always been very interested in cooking & baking. From young, her mother has trained her to cook for the entire family with the philosophy of home-styled cooking techniques using fresh, raw ingredients. Linda learnt to cook using various different ingredients to create new dishes, and she particularly love to cook local Asian dishes. Being a Cantonese, her culinary interest is influenced by her heritage, with her adopting Cantonese cooking principles & techniques, using quality, finest, freshest ingredients to brew soups.
Linda's mother is a professional chef who used to work in Denny's Restaurant in her late 40's & 50's. She is a good cook who loves new recipes, and is passionate about food,& enjoys working in International kitchen, loves fusion aspect cuisine. Linda's younger sister (more into Western fine dining) & Linda both inherit culinary skills from her mum with Linda who is more closer to mum's style of cooking.
Menu Planning - at the cafe is compiled by Chef Bani & owner Linda Isaac. Linda shared that the key to ensure the quality and flavor of the food is preserved is to always cook in small quantities. Chef Bani (a relative of Linda Isaac) is good at baking cakes & cooking halal western dishes. Chef Bani grew up watching her parents run the family's catering business for weddings.
Menu Expansion - at S(he)brews Cafe occur on a bi-monthly basis. Linda shared that her customers are regulars and there is a constant need to whet their appetite with something new now & then for these loyal patrons to look forward to. Currently S(he)brews Cafe menu totals about 40 types of dishes including mains, dessert, soup, beverage. Major Categories include:
Bakery items (sandwich, muffins, pies) &
Main Course (Lasagna),
Today's Special Dishes (whenever there are some good ingredients available, e.g. Shepherd's Pies).
Cafe Culture - There are about 2 kitchen staff at the outlet here. The staff are typically multitasking, & the cafe is self serve & offers a casual, free & easy ambience. The cafe in offering a self serve environment, aims to inculcate a proactive culture to encourage patrons to treat the cafe as if it was their own home, thereby freeing out duties of the service staff. In return the cafe does not charge GST or service charge.
Food Preparation - most of the sauces, marinates & dressings are prepared at the cafe's kitchen here.
Food ingredients - the sauces, marinates used at the cafe are generally sourced from local vendors. The food are served with no pork & no lard, and Chef Bani uses Halal suppliers for her meat dishes, and uses fresh poultry & meat. The meat & poultry are usually marinated overnight. The cafe uses bread from its dedicated bakery Nick Vina Bakery who also supplies to Cold Storage, where the bread are made fresh & delivered to the cafe regularly. Chef Bani uses Ciabatta bread for her sandwiches at the cafe. Food is usually cooked ala minute. The cafe sells & uses Tea Leaves from Teyvika, uses coffee from Haaya's Coffee.
Slogan & Mission Statement - "Savor Life" has a double meaning : to encourage people to treasure the time spent with family & friends, as well as to enjoy the abundance of everything in life.
Uniqueness - S(he)brews Cafe differs from other western European cafes in that it offers a wide variety of cuisine - ranging from Japanese, Western cuisine, to cater to patrons who prefer a wider choice of cuisine under one roof. The cuisine here is not fine dining but tastes good old wholesome home-cooked styled dishes using lots of herbs & spices, fresh ingredients using traditional cooking methods to enable patrons to savor every original ingredients used in the recipe.
Ordering - S(he)brews Cafe uses POS system at the cashier counter, where the food is ordered and payment made at the cashier counter, then diners are seated to wait for the food to be prepared & then self collect at cashier counter.
Payment - Cafe accepts cash payment only.
Booking of Cafe for events - cafe allows booking for major milestone & life events such as Kid's Birthday parties, Birthdays, Anniversaries, as well as Company or Corporate Group meetings. In addition the cafe offers Coffee Brewing Workshops, Team building Activities as well.
Takeaway Orders - Cafe accepts takeaway orders, especially for cafe's Shepherd's Pies which comes in packs of 10, another popular favorite choice is the cafe's Spaghetties. Linda is in talks with plan to work with delivery vendors for bigger orders.
Promotion with Banks - Currently cafe does not have promotion with banks nor Loyalty card program yet. However it does have a 10% off for Church of Our Savior members & MDIS staff.
Sale of Merchandise - The cafe do sell tea pots from Taiwan for brewing Specialty Tea, and sells & uses tea leaves from Teyvika as well.
Target market - mainly staff students from MDIS, from neighbourhood schools, families with kids.
Seating capacity - cafe currently can seat 30 to 35 pax. For Special events, cafe can extend into the halls of the Community Centre.
Signature Items - Shepherd's Pie, Lasagna, Sandwiches. Today's Special of the day - Fish & Chips, Chicken Leg, Devil's Curry, Nonya Laksa (special menu item offered during the Heritage Festival that uses mussels, prawns, fishballs ), Laksa Spaghetti (dry version).
Celebrity visit - During 60th Birthday Celebration of Queenstown Singapore's Prime Minister Lee did visit S(he)brews.
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