My position: I am sceptical of F&B as a pure investment. There are probably easier places to put money if financial return is the objective. If I invest anyway, part of the return is simply helping something I value continue to exist.

Friends have asked me over the years whether I would put money into an F&B business. My answer is usually: probably not, at least not if ROI is the main objective. My maternal family has been hawkers for generations. Even today, the family still runs four humble stalls in a wet market—partly as a livelihood, partly to pass the days. So I am not looking at F&B from the outside thinking, “Wah, restaurant always full. Sure make money.” I have seen enough to be sceptical.

Food is part business, part art

Cooking is a form of art. Two chefs can receive exactly the same ingredients and produce completely different food. One becomes famous. The other closes six months later. And sometimes the food did not even get worse. People simply moved on.

Taste is subjective. Trends change. The café everybody queues two hours for today may become the place everybody walks past three years later. So when you invest in F&B, you are not only underwriting rent, labour, ingredients and operations. You are also underwriting whether people will continue wanting what this particular person is cooking.

Hard to put that neatly into Excel.

The spreadsheet still matters

This does not mean I would throw money into a restaurant because the chef cooks damn good food. It is still an investment decision. Show me the numbers. More importantly: who prepared the numbers? What assumptions went into them? How much growth is based on evidence and how much is optimism? Who is operating the business, and can that person actually execute?

If the economics are genuinely strong, the operator is credible and I become comfortable with the assumptions, of course I would consider it as an investment.

There will always be good F&B investments. I just suspect they are the EXCEPTION rather than the default.

So why would I invest anyway?

Because not every dollar I deploy has to maximise the next dollar. If I really believe in a chef, a cuisine or a place and want it to continue existing, I may still put money into it.

Then I would be honest with myself about what I am doing.

I am partly investing, mostly a patron.

It is not that different from paying for art. Yes, art can appreciate enormously in value, and some people buy it precisely for that reason. But sometimes you buy the painting because you bloody like the painting. If its value increases, wonderful. If not, you still get to enjoy it.

An independent restaurant can be similar. Perhaps my capital helps someone keep cooking. Perhaps I get a place I love bringing my family and friends. Perhaps thousands of other people get to enjoy it too.

If the business eventually throws off fantastic returns?

Even better.

Patronage is not an excuse for a bad business

Calling an investment “patronage” can become a very convenient excuse to keep funding something that simply does not work. Employees still need salaries. Suppliers need to be paid. Rent is still rent. The business needs to sustain itself.

I am not advocating writing blank cheques to keep a beautiful but permanently loss-making restaurant alive.

My point is simpler.

If financial return is the only objective, F&B would probably be one of my last options as an investment.

But if there is something I genuinely want to help exist, then ROI is no longer the only return I am measuring.

What would change my mind?

Show me an F&B business with proven economics, repeat demand, sustainable margins and an operator I trust. Not merely a five-year forecast telling me everything goes up and to the right.

Give me enough evidence and I will happily treat it like any other investment.

Until then, my default remains scepticism.

F&B can absolutely make money. Some will make a lot of it.

But if I ever put money into an independent restaurant, chances are I will have already accepted something before signing the cheque:

I may be paying partly for the privilege of helping good food continue to exist.

And if I make money from it too?

Bonus.