Slow business at Seria food stalls

FOOD vendors at the Kompleks Sri Selera Seria recorded a slight drop in their businesses due to the school holidays.

During the school terms, the situations were different as parents would visit our stall to buy food for their children's lunch, said one of the vendors.

"At the moment, many have gone off for holidays and vacation overseas and we see a drop in the number of customers coming to our stall," said a vendor who wanted to be known as Hajah.

"The number of customers fluctuates, depending on the time of the year," she said, adding that they are usually busy during school days.

Hajah expressed her concerns on the decreasing number of customers visiting her stall lately.

"I received a lot of complaints from my regular customers saying that they have problems with the parking space in Seria."

"They find it hard to find a parking near to this stall and after four to five times going around the stall, they decided to go to the Seria pasar where the parking space is larger and free of charge," she said, adding that this has affected her business.

A public toilet should also be built near the stalls as customers often complain on this inconvenience, she said. "Public toilet is our customers' main concern too as sometimes they have to use it for emergency calls," she said. The nearest public toilet is located at the bus station, which customers find inconvenient as they have to walk across the road, she added.

For Jessie, her family business which sells vegetarian food has many regular customers, but they are also experiencing a drop in customers during the school holidays.

"During school terms, many customers, regardless of their racial background will come and eat at our stall. However, during the school holidays, they will be a lot of customers on Sundays only," she said, adding that it is usually hectic during school days.

"Now, the pace is a bit relaxed and our business is slow. When it's school time, we find it hard to keep up with the customers' food orders as there will be many orders and we lack manpower, that's why sometimes they complain that our service is slow," she said.

A popular soto vendor said that the new stall built by the government has resulted in their business doing well, as their sales have doubled.

More patrons come to the new stall as it provides a bigger space which can accommodate more customers, she said.

"The government has provided a better place here for us compared to the old gerai. The new stall is more convenient as we can store and leave our stuff here and the space is bigger."

All the vendors interviewed by The Brunei Times also lamented over the fact they can only hire two foreign workers.

"It is not easy to serve so many customers with only two waiters or waitresses. The quota given is not enough for us. We need more than two workers to serve our customers' demands efficiently," a vendor in her late 40s said.