KarunaNews Video

It's 2am outside Kukoh 21 Food Centre, a hawker food court in Singapore. Hani Isnin-Racine, 41, and her parents who are in their 70s have been cooking since 1am. Their food stall, started in 2019, opens at 4:30am. "We're open early because 75-95% of the population here is actualy senior folks; so, before they head down to their medical appointment or to the kidney dialysis center, they need to take their prescriptions, their medication ... and they need to have a proper meal before that." The entrepreneur notes patrons of the The $2.50 Shop are "unemployed mostly, they are a singular unit living alone, medically challenged, [or single parent families]." For those reasons, they open early and each item on their menu is an affordable SG$2.50, although each dish is of a caliber to be sold for three to five times that. When they first opened, the prices were at market rate; but when a mother came with four children and asked what she could get with a ten dollar bill, Hani and her parents knew they had to do more for the community. So they did the math, and settled on SG$2.50 to break even on the food stall expenses. Today, their unassuming shop stands as a quiet pillar of humanity in Asia's most expensive city.