Last Saturday night, we strolled around a noticeably quieter Northpoint City at Yishun, and noticed a unit outside FairPrice supermarket that had shuttered and was hoarded up — it was Liang Sandwich Bar. Its signboard was still up, so we deduced the closure was fairly recent.

The Chinese sandwich chain opened its first franchised outlet at VivoCity here in 2018 to much fanfare (it has over 12,000 outlets worldwide in its native China, Malaysia, Hongkong, Korea, Japan, US and Canada). It specialises in ‘hand-grabbed sandwiches’, which consists of a crispy, prata-like fried scallion pancake folded in half like a taco to cradle fillings such as ham, egg, lettuce and tomatoes.

The brand is famously endorsed by Mandopop superstar Jay Chou, whose album names and song lyrics inspired Liang Sandwich Bar’s menu. After the VivoCity outlet, the eatery went on to open more kiosks in centrally-located malls like Raffles City and Bugis Junction, plus a heartland branch in Yishun.

And now, less than two years later, Liang Sandwich Bar has abruptly pulled the plug on all its local outlets. 8days.sg’s calls to its franchise owner went unanswered. A check with the various malls that housed the outlets confirmed that they have indeed shuttered.

So far, 2020 has already seen a handful of notable F&B closures, including ice cream chain Cold Stone Creamery, Peranakan cai png joint Belimbing Superstar and indie cafe Ronin. But you can still get Liang Sandwich Bar’s sarnies at its outlets in nearby(ish) Johor Bahru, or try Jay Chou’s other favourite F&B brand — Machi Machi bubble tea.