Kith Cafe grows up with its customers

[SINGAPORE] When Kith Cafe opened in 2009, it served affordable coffee to students and young working adults; more than a decade later, it hosts birthday parties for the children of these early customers.

“Our regulars matured with us,” said founder Jane Hia. “They had kids, and now they’re bringing their kids to Kith.”

Kith Cafe began as a hole-in-the-wall coffee joint along Robertson Quay, just as Singapore’s cafe scene was beginning to take shape.

Aiming to fill the gap between local coffee priced at S$0.80 and S$5 cups from global chains such as Starbucks, Hia priced her coffee at S$3.80.

After tasting success, she opened a second outlet at the former Park Mall in 2012. Customer requests for simple breakfast items such as toast and eggs gradually led to full all-day menus, for which Kith engaged a former fine dining chef.

In 2018, Kith introduced kids’ meals as more families began frequenting the cafes.

“We noticed the same young customers we started with were now having children. It was a natural transition,” said Hia.

And while Kith had been offering room bookings and office events since 2016, it started hosting children’s birthday parties from 2021 – planning activities, organising games, and providing food and cake.

“It became a one-stop shop for parents,” said Hia. “They didn’t have to find separate vendors for each part of a party.”

Similarly, the cafe introduced bento catering in 2021 and expanded into kids’ bentos the next year. In 2024, it opened its latest outlet at New Bahru, inside kids’ playground Kiztopia Prestige.

“Kiztopia and Kith have a similar target market, and our customers are happy to have a place where they can dine and play,” said Hia.

Hands-on

Last year, Kith began testing cookie-baking as part of birthday events, laying the groundwork for its latest offering: weekend workshops.

Launched in June at their Millenia Walk outlet, these sessions feature creative cookie, pizza and pasta-making activities for children.

Besides food-focused sessions, Kith also brings in external vendors for workshops in areas such as pottery and robotics. 

“A lot of activity centres don’t offer food, and a lot of cafes aren’t kid-friendly. We wanted to be that space that does both,” said Hia.

Vendor slots for the workshops were fully taken up through the June school holidays, and have since continued. Parents are also increasingly combining these sessions with party bookings.

Kith’s kids’ segment – particularly birthday events and workshops – has become a fast-growing, high-ticket contributor, said Hia.

It is also operationally lean, she added. “One staff member can manage 10 kids. It’s like running two industries with the same target market.”

Looking ahead, Hia plans to scale the B2B side of the business.

In 2013, Kith launched chocolate and sea salt cookies for retail sale, now stocked at Japanese supermarkets Meidi-Ya and Isetan. Hia hopes to have more partnerships to sell Kith’s cookies and bentos at corporate and large-scale events.

She also hopes to ramp up cookie production, perhaps by using government food production facilities.

Said Hia: “This era for cafes is harder than Covid. It’s not enough to be trendy or Instagrammable. You have to move fast and keep evolving.”

This is the third in a series on how the veterans of Singapore’s cafe scene are adapting to stay relevant