Our local F&B scene has been through a hellish few months since the Covid-19 outbreak started. The restaurants and bars that were once bustling with customers are now as cold as the air-con in dead, empty malls. It’s obviously not the ideal time for actor and celeb restaurateur Adam Chen, 43, to launch his new Japanese eatery Ebisu Bowls (his fellow famous F&B owners like Chen Shucheng and Yao Wenlong have all struggled to keep their restaurants afloat).

When 8days.sg calls Adam to catch up about his new biz, he sounds incredibly upbeat. But he candidly reveals: “I can tell you, my business is down by 90 per cent.” It’s a depressing phrase for any restaurateur to utter, considering that Adam runs many eateries here — hip yakitori joint Birders, bar chain Five, Ikki Izakaya, Park cafe and Golden Bar (he also owns Japanese watch boutique Maker’s Watch Knot in Tiong Bahru, which is currently closed for circuit breaker).

He elaborates that his eateries, mainly located in the CBD, had suffered from the dearth of office crowd diners. “We can do delivery, but who do we deliver to?” he reasons. “The office workers don’t exactly live next door to their offices. They're located all around Singapore. That means your customer base is zero. You have to start from scratch and reach out to people nearby.”

And that’s what he is doing for his new Ebisu Bowls, which offers takeaways and island-wide delivery for “DIY sashimi bowls” (pictured, $12 each). It gives chirashi bowl addicts many options to customise their order; choose your favourite sliced sashimi (a selection of raw or seared salmon and tuna), add a seasoning like truffled shoyu plus veggie toppings, and have them layered on a base of either rice, soba or a salad. The restaurant also serves its own brown rice takikomi gohan (a Japanese dish of rice mixed with bits of meat and veggies), along with a range of maki rolls (from $10 a roll).

The eatery is located beside Adam’s Ikki Izakaya in Buona Vista, and he had just taken over the unit from a defunct Italian cafe when Covid-19 struck. Initially, he had intended to use the new space to expand Ikki’s seating. But he considered the functional kitchen that came with the shop and felt “it was a waste” not to utilise it. He decided to come up with a new concept that builds on the bara chirashi and avocado salmon dons that were selling very well at Ikki. “We actually opened Ebisu Bowls in February,” he says, though he did not publicise the opening due to the severe pandemic situation. But he reckons matter-of-factly: “It’s not just me. F&B is suffering collectively.”

Thanks to “accommodating landlords” and “helpful government measures”, Adam has been able to keep his restaurants going. He shares, “It’s okay in the sense we didn’t retrench any workers, but the morale has been low.” Shuttering is an option, but he points out: “If I give up now, it stops my losses. But it also means there’s no moving forward, no chance for recovery. You lose what you’ve invested overnight. I’ll never let go till there’s really no alternative.”

Meanwhile, he has quickly gotten the hang of efficient delivery service for his sashimi bowls. He explains, “We’re dealing with sashimi, so we’re scared of food contamination [during delivery]. So we made sure everyone gets their orders within half an hour from pickup to delivery. We had an order from Pasir Ris, and we timed [the delivery from Buona Vista] — it was under 28 minutes.”

Despite the dire circumstances, Adam is optimistic about running an F&B business in the time of Covid-19. “The good thing is, this really forced us to pivot a bit. What the pandemic has taught us was to never depend on one source of revenue. We used to focus so much on dine-in, but overnight we completed [setting up] our online network and delivery platforms. We’re pretty aggressive — we want to expand Ebisu Bowls in as early as June.”

PHOTOS: ADAM CHEN/ EBISU BOWLS​​​​​​​