Ponggol Seafood, famous for its chilli crab, closes its shutters after more than 50 years

SINGAPORE – Iconic seafood restaurant Ponggol Seafood, once famous for its chilli crab and mee goreng, closed its premises at The Punggol Settlement without fanfare on May 2, after more than five decades. May 1 was its last day of operations.

The restaurant changed hands in 2023. Its new owners, who took over and renamed it Ponggol, decided to throw in the towel after struggling with losses for a year.

Founded by Mr Ting Choon Teng in 1969, the restaurant, originally called Hock Kee, was located at the end of Punggol Road, near Punggol Jetty. Its rustic charm and fresh seafood cooked in unique sauces used to draw hordes of locals and tourists to its tin-roofed facility in the 1970s and 1980s.

The restaurant had to move in 1994 when the Government acquired the land. After operating in a few other locations over the next two decades, it returned to The Punggol Settlement in 2014.

The second-generation owners of the family restaurant sold the business in 2023.

Fabian Lim, 38, who ran a wine bistro next to Ponggol Seafood, hired his father Joseph Lim, 65, and nephew Edward Ho, 34, as investors to take over the restaurant.

But the trio decided not to pay an additional fee to use the restaurant’s original name and keep costs manageable. They officially took over operations of the restaurant on May 1, 2023, retaining most of the kitchen team, with Lim as general manager.

They changed the company’s registered trading name from Ponggol Seafood Holdings to New Punggol Seafood in April 2023, but made no changes to the restaurant’s sign until April, when they shortened its name to Ponggol.

Fabian Lim says: “I thought it was a waste to let a restaurant with more than 50 years of history close. “I saw potential in the business and wanted to revive its former glory.”

He closed his wine bistro in September 2023 to focus on the restaurant. But high rents, along with rising operating costs and labor issues, made it difficult to maintain the restaurant.

Lim says there are no immediate plans to reopen the restaurant, although the lease doesn’t expire for another year. He is in talks with the landlord to end the lease.

The situation is a far cry from the restaurant’s heyday in the 1980s, when it offered valet parking for customers who drove up.

In an interview with The Straits Times in 2010, the founder’s son, Ting Cheng Ping, said his father made his chilli crab using a mixture of soy, garlic, chilli, tomato and other ingredients that he kept secret.