Rejoice, ye believers of curly fries, ice cream waffles and root beer floats — thy faith in A&W will soon be rewarded.
The American fast food chain confirmed today to Yahoo Singapore that, yes, they’ll be making their highly-anticipated (and greatly demanded) return to the Little Red Dot come 2018. In fact, they already built an office here back in 2016 in preparation for their planned expansion across Southeast Asia, whatever that means (they already have outlets in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand).
What they have in mind for Singapore however is to launch a flagship A&W restaurant here (exact location unknown for now), which will serve as a “training store for Southeast Asia”, according to A&W CEO Kevin Bazner in an email exchange.
“Once the first location is open, we will begin actively franchising with a goal of opening our first franchise restaurant towards the back half of 2018,” wrote Bazner to Yahoo Singapore.
For those old enough to remember, A&W actually made landfall on our shores way back in 1966, when they opened their first outlet at Dunearn Road. When KFC and McDonalds’ came along, A&W got relegated to the background and soon lost footing in the local market, despite launching possibly Singapore’s first drive-in fast food restaurant and having a boathouse restaurant in Sentosa.
Sales dwindled in the 2000s, and by 2002 they only had seven restaurants remaining island-wide. They served their final Coney dog the next year, and left the country for good.
But absence of their All American Food™ made our hearts grew fonder, as Singaporeans started to yearn for the fast food of their childhood. It took 15 long years for A&W to finally return to our fold, but as local fans who’ve sipped on their ice cold root beer floats overseas can attest, it’s worth the wait.
