How a university dropout built a tonkatsu stall chain

When Mr August Wijaya opened Maruhachi in Punggol in November 2020, sceptics doubted a stall selling $9.80 pork katsu don would survive in a coffee shop.

- Hedy Khoo Senior Correspondent

Tonkatsu, after all, was a Japanese restaurant dish, far removed from the affordable chicken rice and noodles in the heartland.

Four years later, the 42-year-old is still at the stove, battered but undeterred. His chain has weathered the swings of the Covid-19 pandemic, the boom of 13 outlets at its peak and subsequent closures that whittled Maruhachi down to five stalls.

The brand now brings in about $3 million in annual revenue.

Mr Wijaya, an Indonesian Chinese from Medan, never set out to start his own food business in Singapore.

In 2003, while pursuing a degree in information technology at Charles Sturt University in Sydney, Australia, he dropped out after his Japanese girlfriend became pregnant. They married soon after and he left for Nagoya - his wife's home town - to find work.

Dishwashing at an izakaya there paid him more than he could earn in Indonesia as a fresh graduate.

"I could get $1,500 a month as a dishwasher, which was good money for someone with no experience who couldn't speak the language," he says.

After two years, he was promoted to kitchen helper, then moved to the Nagoya outpost of Outback Steakhouse as assistant kitchen manager and cook, where he learnt the ins and outs of running a food business.

The strict working culture in Japan left its mark.

"If work started at 7am, clocking in at 6.59am was considered late. I learnt to arrive 10 minutes early. The Japanese take their work seriously and that is why the quality of their goods and services is topnotch."

In 2007, he was recruited to Singapore to be the kitchen manager at a Japanese restaurant in Clarke Quay, serving Nagoya-style curry udon. It closed after a year as locals preferred curry rice instead.

"That was my first lesson. If you don’t adapt to local tastes, you won't survive."