100 Malaysians, 100 Milestones – LSA100 this year celebrates the amazing journey of entrepreneur Claire Tan whose brainchild, Grumpy Bagels has become one of the biggest and most talked about businesses in the F&B sector this year.
What comes to your mind when you think of New York City? For me, it’s a lot of things at once: Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, the top of the Empire State Building (where Spider-Man famously brooded on), the lights on Broadway and the greys of Wall Street, thin crust pizza, and of course… the bagels. But what exactly makes the bagels in New York so unique? Claire Tan of Grumpy Bagels can tell you. After all, it’s the charm of a traditional New York-style bagel that brought her back to the city again and again during her stint as a flight attendant.
After hanging up her flying hat, Claire — like many baking enthusiasts during the COVID-19 pandemic — turned her passion into a home-based business. She dabbled in cakes and pastries for a spell, and as soon as the fog of the nationwide lockdown was lifted, she returned to her true love of bagels. She was always set on opening her own café, but it seemed a faraway dream than anything — then eventually, it became ‘now or never’.
Claire began sharing her journey in January of this year, documenting every step of the way as she and her team turned the abandoned house that once was into the Grumpy Bagels that it is today. Soon, her peers (and beyond) became interested in the journey, and her follower count on Instagram grew twofold. Everyone was curious to see what this new café would bring. And as soon as Grumpy Bagels officially opened its doors in April, the response was amazing — and soon it became overwhelming.
“When we first opened, we didn’t expect the crowd,” Claire recounts, now able to laugh at the memory. “And we couldn’t manage everything. We had manpower issues, so people complained about the service, and then also the stock. We ran out of everything. We really didn’t anticipate that kind of response! And then we were forced to close for two days, because we needed to seek for more manpower and to stock up on the supplies.”
Fast forward six months later, Grumpy Bagels is a bit more manageable — they’re now a team of about twenty people — yet the crowd remains steadily huge. Not every business is able to sustain itself in the post-pandemic stage, but Grumpy Bagels is consistent in what it does. (I’ve had a taste of these famous bagels myself, and two things stand out to me: the massive size, as big as the entire hand; and the absolutely satisfying crunch at the first bite. I like my bagels a little more on the denser side, and the typical trait of a New York-style bagel is chewy on the inside and crispy on the outside.)
But bringing that one-of-a-kind flair of the New York-style bagel to Malaysian taste buds was no easy feat, at least not at first. Claire also recalls some of the early-days feedback of Grumpy Bagels: “When we first opened, we did the ‘traditional’ [New York] style bagels, and we received a lot of complaints like, ‘Your bagel is not fresh.’ But that’s because we are so used to Japanese bread. So they’re like, ‘Why do you make hard bread? It’s not fresh.’ We’ve tried to improvise a lot along the way, to fit the local taste so that the majority can accept lah.” Still in its experimenting era, Grumpy Bagels is on a mission to pin itself on the map as a quintessential bagel house — one that every visiting café-goer would want to stop by.
First of all, congratulations on the ever-growing success of Grumpy Bagels! How has it been, managing the response and feedback that the café has gotten since the launch?
I think managing the feedback and response was rewarding and a bit overwhelming at the same time. But I think we are quite lucky, like, in the sense that we have a very supportive community. They really encouraged us and also gave us a lot of feedback to improve. Each of the feedback, I think no matter good or bad, actually helped us to improve a lot since the beginning and also helped us to stay connected with our audience.
What would you say is the biggest factor that helped Grumpy Bagels continue to be successful?
I think it’s because we shared our story online. We started doing [Instagram] Reels and sharing our renovation story online, because we were running our budget. We didn’t have the operation costs, so we had to make Reels and build awareness before our launch. So, you could follow us from the first day of renovation until the café had been fully renovated. I think because we started from humble beginnings, and we built everything from scratch. We faced the same challenges that most business owners would encounter. So, I believe it’s the authenticity that resonates with people and also kind of inspires people who share the same dream, to pursue that dream.
And talking about doing the Reels and everything, the business is quite reliant on content creation and being online. How do you feel about that, about growing with the Internet and building that online audience?
I’ll be very honest, growing with the Internet has been a very incredible journey for us lah. Because I have seen how the digital platform can transform the business. It’s empowering to connect directly to our customers and share our story. And then the best thing is that we get immediate feedback. So when we post something, people can see that, and they can give us the feedback right away from what they see, where we can improve. We also met a lot of F&B operators. They saw us online, and they were so eager to help. When we first started, we faced a lot of issues. So, they were offering help also. They gave us a lot of advice like, “Maybe you can try this… or that…” and also shared their suppliers’ contacts, all these things. I think social media has helped us to showcase not only our products, but also our journey. It feels like we’re building a community together. Like everyone’s building the business together with us. You know, I think they feel involved in our business also. And it’s that sense of belonging and connection, and I think it is a very precious one. It’s invaluable.
What goes into creating flavours of the bagels that you have at Grumpy Bagels?
Over the years because I travelled a lot when I was a flight attendant, I’ve been to different countries and I tried a lot of different food. So, normally when I go to a different country and try the food, I would just write [it] down. I would write in my notebook, like, which one is nice, or the certain flavours. I think for all these pastry creations, Europe is really very advanced. And they’re very creative with it as well. I also follow a lot of YouTube channels. We try to combine a little bit lah here and there, and do something different. But we also have to feed the local taste.
What would you say then, compared to when you first started, is the biggest challenge that you’ve faced?
I think it’s not one single big challenge, but many challenges, big and small, that we’ve faced along the way that help us to progress up. I remember when we first started, like what I’ve told you, we faced a lot of manpower issues. And then with the stock. Running here and there just to buy things. I still remember the second day of our opening, people were queuing for, like, two to three hours outside. And we were so stressed, then I looked at the stock — because I already made the bagels in the morning. I was like, ‘Okay, we definitely don’t have enough.’ So then I informed the customers, “Sorry, we don’t have enough, so maybe you don’t queue first. Maybe you can come again tomorrow.” They were like, “No, we want to try. Maybe we can get something.” We were, like, super, super stressed, because we didn’t have a proper system. So, we have to find different ways, find a solution and also implement the queuing system to keep everything going smoothly. But I think in two months, we already settled everything. Here and there. (laughs) We basically don’t have a day off, and then we work, like, maybe 20 hours a day just to fix everything.
As an entrepreneur — because before this, you had a home-based business — you’re managing a pretty big team now. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned so far as a manager?
Sometimes I still miss my home baking days. (laughs) Because I think managing a business is not easy, especially with manpower issues. This is the main thing. Because the first thing is with our crowd, it’s really tiring. So we try to hire more people for our staff. But we also try to give them extra benefits. And we have football day every week, we have badminton day, to build the team so that we can work happily together. Also, I think starting a business is not hard, but managing it, maintaining it.
As a manager, how would you describe yourself?
I think my personality is more on the positive side. I normally see the good side of everything. Like, let’s say in the beginning when we were facing a lot of challenges, I kept thinking, ‘Okay, at least it’s a good problem.’ At least we’re not facing something like, “Oh we don’t have customers, or no one is coming.” That’s what I told myself. Even though I was so tired. And also, I’m quite open and flexible to everything, because I think after I opened the business, I realised that nothing goes as planned. (laughs) So, you can only go with the flow. You can only adapt to it and then just find different solutions as you go along.
Do you have a lot of regular customers at Grumpy Bagels?
Oh, yes! Now we have a lot of regulars, and I’m happy about that also. They like to message us. They’re like, “Can you please open one [near me]?” Because we have a lot of regulars from PJ and Mont Kiara. It’s very far for them. They’re like, “When are you going to open one near me? I’ve been waiting for so long!” So maybe slowly, we will start to have a delivery option. But for now, we’re just focusing on in-house.
Seeing as Grumpy Bagels has been doing really well so far, are you planning to expand it? Because I’ve tried the bagels myself, and they’re really so good!
Thank you! Thank you so much. Yeah, I try my best to maintain the business, because I think for Grumpy Bagels, our goal now is to make it a tourist spot as well. So everyone who comes to Malaysia — because, like, if we go to Korea, we already have a list [of places] that we want to visit, right? So this is what I want to do also, because a lot of people are asking me about expansion. But I don’t want to make this brand like something that you can find everywhere. But when it comes to it, our expansion goal is actually to create different ‘brands’. And also I want Kuala Lumpur to be a place where people think, “Oh, we can come here for café-hopping as well.” So, Grumpy Bagels will be the first, and then we’ll see in the future, like, if I have more ideas, then we’ll open another one. Like a café with maybe pastries or something!
