A toast to North Bridge Road's nostalgic kopi institution

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Dressed in his signature white singlet and striped pyjama pants, Mr Shi Pong Shu of heritage coffee shop Heap Seng Leong is probably Singapore's most hardworking kopi-and-toast hero.

From 5am to 5pm daily, Mr Shi - who is in his 80s (he cannot remember his birth year) - dishes out the quintessential local breakfast at his retro-chic kopi institution in North Bridge Road.

He flips the bread over charcoal by hand, uses a fuss-free tin lid to scrape off burnt bits of toast and deftly slips ice-cold wads of butter in between the slices and into steaming cups of kopi guyou (coffee with butter).

He has done this - at first standing tall, now bent over - for 47 years, 365 days a year, with no breaks and no days off.

He works wordlessly alongside his son Shi Ting Chow, 58.

A set of kaya toast, kopi guyou and runny soft-boiled eggs goes for $3.60.

The father-son duo made kopi guyou cool before hipsters started drinking bulletproof coffee. They also mastered charcoal cooking before fine-dining restaurants imported Inka ovens.

They are the epitome of old-school cool, outlasting many trendy cafes over the decades.

The Shis have run Heap Seng Leong since 1974 and they share the space with a Malay stall that sells nasi lemak and curry puffs.

They are painfully modest when asked how they mastered the craft. The younger Mr Shi says in Mandarin they learnt it from their forebears and never found any reason to tweak the well-loved recipe.

"We just do lah," says the publicity-shy elder Mr Shi, who came to Singapore from China when he was 12 years old.

He sits quietly in a corner chomping on his toast, unfazed by The Sunday Times snapping reels of photographs of him, only getting up to serve customers when they trickle into the coffee shop.

The Shis are no strangers to generations of shutterbugs and Instagrammers using the nostalgic space as their OOTD (outfit of the day) backdrop or to shoot advertisements and wedding photographs.

Entering the retro space feels like travelling back to the 1970s. An orange coin phone sits on the wooden counter alongside an abacus, against a backdrop of old-school Coca-Cola glasses and bottles.

Only a stack of disposable masks and a SafeEntry QR code serve as grim reminders that this is 2021.

The younger Mr Shi, who is the second of five siblings, says: "Customers like the old-school, vintage and traditional feel of the coffee shop. If we renovate, you will lose that. I don't think we will change anything."

Since it is a two-man show, they are not on any delivery platforms as they feel they will not be able to cope with orders.

Business has halved for them during the pandemic, with only takeaways allowed for now, but the father and son have no intention of giving it up or retiring.

Mr Shi says: "We've always asked my father to retire, but he wants to continue. If he can, he will just do it.

"If we stop, I think customers will be disappointed. It is our honour to serve them."

 

Source: The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Reproduced with permission.

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