In August 2019, lunchtime waits at Hokkien Man Hokkien Mee in Toa Payoh, Singapore, reached thirty to forty-five minutes. Former two-Michelin-star restaurant sous-chef Xavier Neo had opened the stall with his wife, Alice, serving just one dish. Yet each wok could produce only nine or ten plates, so orders quickly accumulated.
The stall sold about 200 plates between its 10 a.m. opening and a stock-dependent closing around 2:30 p.m. Rather than keep every customer in a standing line, the couple installed an electronic number board like those used by bubble-tea shops. Alice joked that the stall now looked like a polyclinic.
The chef's fine-dining résumé was not the only source of demand. A prawn stock cooked for three hours and a small batch size set the pace. Turning the line into ticket numbers changed how people waited, but it could not remove the time required for the next ten plates.