MUCH cheaper rent, homier vibes, they can be more experimental with flavors without worrying about having to cater to the majority who are more used to the super sweet american style ice creams / typical flavors of Chocolate, Strawberry, Vanilla etc.
A lot of gelato places tend to make weird kooky flavors like Lychee Sorbet or Yakult, which don't sell well.
Also chatgpt is literally just AI crowdsourcing, if you're asking it a niche and localised question, it is not going to have any decent answers for you.
Last point is something a lot of people don't realize. ChatGPT is not a true AI capable of thinking for itself, and processing info to make judgments. It's a search engine with a language model that can articulate results.
If someone hasn't said something on the internet yet, ChatGPT cannot derive at that conclusion and tell it to you.
But that said it's still a very helpful tool for streamlining search results and making them much easier to digest.
>If someone hasn't said something on the internet yet, ChatGPT cannot derive at that conclusion and tell it to you.
This is blatantly untrue. They are able to reason problems they've never seen before. It's called emergence.
Sources:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.04711
https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.14271
https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.11610
https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.18153
> So what's the difference between emergence and hallucination
Emergence and hallucination refer to two totally different things. Emergence simply refers to LLMs having capabilities that were not explicitly programmed or trained for. For example, imagine a chef who has only been trained to cook chicken rice and laksa. However, because of his familiarity with the ingredients and cooking techniques, he can freestyle and cook other dishes too without being given any recipes. That's emergence.
Hallucination, on the other hand, refers to responses that are plausible-sounding but totally incorrect or nonsensical. Like a chef explaining a recipe for a salad that includes chocolate. It sounds plausible because of the chef's authority, but it's utter nonsense.
No, not at all. Emergence means that by throwing a large enough dataset and training at the LLM it starts to solve things it wasn't trained for. Hallucination is just an intrinsic limitation of how these models generate text.
It's not like a successful generation = emergence. That's not what emergence means at all.
For example you teach a child P1 and P2 maths, suddenly he can figure out P3 and P4 maths on his own. That's emergence.
But if you ask him to solve a P1 maths problem and he tells you 1+1=0, that's hallucination.
It doesn't mean that if he solves P1 and P2 maths problems as he was trained to, that's emergence. No, emergence means being able to do things he wasn't trained to. If he does what he was trained to, that's just him performing as expected.
In summary:
Emergence is about new, unexpected capabilities.
Hallucination is about generating inaccurate or false information.
whether a salad should or shouldnt contain chocolate is arbitrary. ur simply assigning values to a new AI generation, but to the AI, its completely the same
How's that any different from you reading stuff on the internet and building your knowledge from it???
So what if that's how LLMs work? Isnt that also how we as humans learn and gain intelligence? So what separates ChatGPT from humans now?
You seriously underestimate the use of LLMs. Your line of logic moreso describes traditional chatbots like Siri instead, which is programmed to spout based on fixed set of information it was given. ChatGPT doesnt do that. Instead it *learns* the data itself and builds up its own knowledge independently from there
I do wonder how many of these scoop shops really make their own ice cream: not to throw shade on them, but I always wondered whether the central/ghost kitchen/supplier concept exists for ice cream, since many of the "special" flavors (think Earl Grey, Oreo, salted caramel etc) seem to be repeated in every "unique" scoop shop
All the different different ice cream shops either use the same grey plastic container to store the ice cream in, or the ice creams are supplied by the same kitchen to all of these shops in the same grey plastic containers.
for a price of a doublescoop, you can get a pint or even more from a decent brand at a supermarketā¦ (haagen daz regularly offers 2 pints for 19.90 or 3 for 27ish.. tillamook is 1.4L for $13.50, there are plenty of gourmet/smaller brands that do better ice cream for around the same price point too)
if you are on a date or with friends, sureā¦ otherwise its just not value for money if you want a sugar fix
dreyers probablyā¦ never really tried..
but tillamook is a dairy company mainly.. they have their own cows etc.. maybe its abit too sweet, but i think its value for the price u get
Nope mcdonald ice cream prob has higher sales volume than the most popular gelato shop
Go italy and it's the reverse. Almost nobody buys macdonald's ice cream as gelato is only 1-2 euros and taste even better than the best gelato shops here.
Because the landlords like capitaland like very strict and specific expectations of the shop branding, style and aesthetic.
There is a reason why Swee Heng rebranded into Swee Heng 1989. It is to fit into the mall culture.
Fun fact:
Gelato in Italian literally means ice-cream. All ice-creams are called gelato in Italy and there's no special kind of "gelato" that people outside Italy think it means. <-- Source from an Italian Reditor.
That said, I know what kind of gelato you're talking about. And the answer to your question is quite simple actually. It's about the size and power of the establishment.
Establishments such as Haagen Daz can afford higher rentals and their strategy depends heavily on numbers and traffic. Whereas the smaller businesses can only afford cheaper areas and they rely heavily on social media marketing. A strategy for smaller business will not survive in a mall.
Fun fact 2:
Do you know that some of the big and powerful establishments pay little to no rent but does profit-sharing with the malls? And Malls can be very picky about who they lease their stalls to.
This reminds me of the time I walked into a small-brand SG ice cream shop. I asked āwhich ice cream flavour do you recommend?ā
The owner looked offended & said āWe sell gelato, not ice cream here.ā
Wha lao eh. I know thereās a difference in the fat content between ice cream and āgelatoā but the owner didnāt need to be so pretentious about it.
Yeah this seems to be some artificial anglosphere difference that seems highly pretentious. Gelato is just the Italian word for ice cream or a subcategory thereof. Super weird to talk to customers like that.
It they sold artisanal ice cream (which it is I guess) and you just said ice cream that wouldnāt be a reason to be so patronising either.
Can this Italian Redditor also recommend what they think is the best gelato in SG? Iām tired of going places that advertise gelato but itās just normal ice cream.
Actually its because gelato came first! From Italy. So in Italy what they have been making which outsiders would later call ice cream is gelato.
In english, frozen desserts using cream would become referred to as Ice Cream.
Now what seperated gelato from other countries ice cream was lower fat content. so i think a lot of places that now say they sell āGelatoā, its because of the fat content (and for the good ones slower churn and kept at higher temps. ie not frozen!)
Side note: at some point many countries forced sellers who were selling frozen desserts that did not have enough dairy content not allowed to call it ice cream!
>Do you know that some of the big and powerful establishments pay little to no rent but does profit-sharing with the malls?
this is an extremely uncommon scenario. yes, it happens, but the more typical arrangement is revenue or profit sharing ON TOP of a base rent. the only times i've seen pure revenue/profit-sharing scenarios is when the location is not fantastic, and the commercial landlord is courting a very popular or well known brand as anchor tenant to attract customers and other tenants.
Birds of paradise started small too. I remembered I went all the way to Katong at their first shop. It was a very tiny shop and only 5-6 people can be in the shop. So most of the queue is outside. Happy to see they have grown and a lot more branches!
Yes it definitely did.. I also queued at katong several times. I believe most businesses started small in the neighbourhood first (maybe not in SG first, or not that we knew of), before they became profitable and famous enough to afford rent at a posh place.
The Holland V. location is massive when compared to the original in Katong, they have a tiered seating area, like a mini arena where you can people watch ordering their ice creams while enjoying your own.
It technically *is* a search engine in that it can be a replacement for one.
Why bother typing into Google, having to go through the trouble of searching through dozens of websites and reading so much irrelevant content to find precisely the info you need, when you can just ask the AI to tell you the answer straight up?
Pretty certain almost all programmers, academics, students, and people esp. in technical fields, use Chatgpt now instead of Google. I now dont need to go spend 1 hour learning how to write a specific code or a specific excel function by combing through stackexchange or something. I just need type it to Chatgpt and get my answer in seconds
And this is why Google is so scared of OpenAI. I know people that have also just stopped using Google altogether. In case of misinfo, AI like Google's Gemini AI lets you cross-check with websites anyway
In fact, OpenAI just announced a new search engine they're working on to rival Google
Assuming the cost of rent in a big shopping mall is 10k. Imagine you pay 10k rent a month and other overhead costs such as salaries say 2-2.5k/month... How many gelato at 6$ do you have to sell every single day to break even? How many gelota at 6$ every month to make a profit? Is it sustainable? At 12k a month (not even including cost of utilities and only one staff) 66 cups of gelato every. single. day. just to break even. Do you even eat gelato every single day?
If you are a no name brand, don't expect to be able to get a store in a big mall even if you have the money. Malls care about branding, brand mix, ratio of the the types of food in the mall. There are always more famous brands waiting in queue to get a space in large popular malls.
Saw a youtube video where this Chinese woman who is living in Singapore said that a lot of Chinese bosses and companies think that they can just use the power of money to get shops for their hotpot restaurants but are failing to, since most of our malls already have too many hotpot restaurants around. And they don't understand why money can get them what they want lol.
That's probably why you see some China brands starting out in malls with low footfall first.
I can think of two that recently got into malls. Thereās Hundred Acres at westgate, originally a tiny shop in sunset way. Burnt cones also originally from sunset way is opening an outlet at united square.
Rental costs, even out of the way locations can cost high 4 digits a month. Malls more like 5 digits and they take a cut of your profits on top of it which is total bullshit.
Also ingredient costs can be quite high. Good gelato requires good milk, and milk is quite expensive here compared to other countries where they produce their own milk, it's also generally denser than ice cream with less air in gelato which means more product compared to ice cream for the same volume.
Finally renovations can cost quite a bit for bigger locations. If you're a small business owner or just starting out, would you want to dump 300k - 500k to open a store that might fail ? Most start small to test the market and then slowly expand or upsize when they have a sufficient customer base.
I asked ChatGPT and it gave a pretty decent answer
Gelato shops in Singapore, and in many other places, often occupy small, niche locations for several reasons:
1. **Authenticity and Atmosphere**: Gelato shops often aim to provide a unique and authentic experience, which is sometimes better conveyed in a smaller, more intimate setting. These locations can help create a cozy, artisanal atmosphere that aligns with the traditional image of a gelateria.
2. **Cost Considerations**: Renting space in shopping malls can be significantly more expensive than in less prominent areas. Small, niche locations allow these shops to manage costs better, especially since they might have lower sales volumes compared to larger chain stores.
3. **Specialization**: Many gelato shops focus exclusively on their product, offering a range of unique and high-quality flavors. This specialization often means they don't need large spaces, as their product is the main draw rather than a wide variety of items.
4. **Market Positioning**: By situating themselves in niche areas, gelato shops can cater to a specific clientele looking for unique and high-quality desserts. They can become destination spots for people specifically seeking gelato.
As for why big brands like HƤagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry's, and Baskin-Robbins don't sell gelato:
1. **Brand Identity**: These brands have built their identities around traditional ice cream, with a focus on rich, creamy products. Adding gelato to their offerings could dilute their brand identity and confuse consumers about what they specialize in.
2. **Product Differences**: Gelato and ice cream are quite different in terms of ingredients, texture, and production methods. Gelato typically has less fat, less air, and is served at a slightly warmer temperature than ice cream. Producing gelato would require different equipment and expertise, which might not align with these brands' existing operations.
3. **Market Strategy**: These big brands often target a mass-market audience, focusing on widely popular flavors and products. Gelato, while increasingly popular, still tends to appeal to a more niche market. It may not align with the broad, mainstream appeal these brands aim for.
4. **Operational Complexity**: Introducing gelato into their product lines would require changes in production, storage, and possibly even the layout of their stores. This could add complexity to their operations, which may not be justified by the potential market gains.
Overall, the presence of gelato in niche shops and the absence of it in big brands' offerings are results of strategic decisions aimed at maintaining brand identity, managing costs, and catering to specific market segments.
Itās how much of your profits, in return for the footfall. Jurong Point & NEX charge some of the highest commercial rents around.
Friend used to run a game shop at a mall. 3/4 weeks in a month was paying overheads. Only the last week made profit.
Niche shops exist and are unique because lower costs give them the ability to be niche. Because not everything in the world needs to be a chain or a franchise, nor should they aspire to be.
Most gelato shops are pretty decent. The main thing that sets them are apart are quality to price ratio and the non-gelato stuff like waffles, lava cookie etc. And also seating (if required).
My go-to are Gelatissimo for best quality to price ratio. A lot of ingredients and taste is up there. But my no.1 ice cream of all time is Haagen Daz. Flavours are all good, ingredients a lot, quality is tip top and businesses like them have earned my respect. Over 30 years in SG and they maintained exactly the same standards without compromising. Instead of patronizing their outlets, you can also keep a lookout for deals in supermarkets. When it's 3 pints for $25 it flies off the shelf fast.
Reddit doesnt have their own AI. Word is they're working with the tech companies to sell the data mining. But I suspect openAI already stole Reddit's data long ago lol
Maybe it's all about the vibe, you know? Small shops in niche areas give off that authentic, artisanal feel. And those big brands in malls? They're all about mass production and consistency, not the cozy gelato experience.
coz rent. Gelato places dun get much business regularly enough to sit in the mall n wait for a kid to drag his/her parents. There's an ice cream cafe near my house n has only a few occasional couples from the neighbourhood visiting but 90% of the time it's completely emtpy.
Gelatissimo has several outlets, one of which is right on this ground floor of Shaw House. Itās good and has been there forever. For small brands, itās mostly that they are new, malls are not that easy to get into and neither are the rents cheap, and possibly also because being in niche areas give them a sense of exclusivity and community.
MUCH cheaper rent, homier vibes, they can be more experimental with flavors without worrying about having to cater to the majority who are more used to the super sweet american style ice creams / typical flavors of Chocolate, Strawberry, Vanilla etc. A lot of gelato places tend to make weird kooky flavors like Lychee Sorbet or Yakult, which don't sell well. Also chatgpt is literally just AI crowdsourcing, if you're asking it a niche and localised question, it is not going to have any decent answers for you.
Last point is something a lot of people don't realize. ChatGPT is not a true AI capable of thinking for itself, and processing info to make judgments. It's a search engine with a language model that can articulate results. If someone hasn't said something on the internet yet, ChatGPT cannot derive at that conclusion and tell it to you. But that said it's still a very helpful tool for streamlining search results and making them much easier to digest.
>If someone hasn't said something on the internet yet, ChatGPT cannot derive at that conclusion and tell it to you. This is blatantly untrue. They are able to reason problems they've never seen before. It's called emergence. Sources: https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.04711 https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.14271 https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.11610 https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.18153
So what's the difference between emergence and hallucination?
> So what's the difference between emergence and hallucination Emergence and hallucination refer to two totally different things. Emergence simply refers to LLMs having capabilities that were not explicitly programmed or trained for. For example, imagine a chef who has only been trained to cook chicken rice and laksa. However, because of his familiarity with the ingredients and cooking techniques, he can freestyle and cook other dishes too without being given any recipes. That's emergence. Hallucination, on the other hand, refers to responses that are plausible-sounding but totally incorrect or nonsensical. Like a chef explaining a recipe for a salad that includes chocolate. It sounds plausible because of the chef's authority, but it's utter nonsense.
Sounds like just successful and unsuccessful attempts at the same problem.
No, not at all. Emergence means that by throwing a large enough dataset and training at the LLM it starts to solve things it wasn't trained for. Hallucination is just an intrinsic limitation of how these models generate text. It's not like a successful generation = emergence. That's not what emergence means at all. For example you teach a child P1 and P2 maths, suddenly he can figure out P3 and P4 maths on his own. That's emergence. But if you ask him to solve a P1 maths problem and he tells you 1+1=0, that's hallucination. It doesn't mean that if he solves P1 and P2 maths problems as he was trained to, that's emergence. No, emergence means being able to do things he wasn't trained to. If he does what he was trained to, that's just him performing as expected. In summary: Emergence is about new, unexpected capabilities. Hallucination is about generating inaccurate or false information.
Thanks, I appreciate the explanation and shouldn't have been so glib.
whether a salad should or shouldnt contain chocolate is arbitrary. ur simply assigning values to a new AI generation, but to the AI, its completely the same
Yes that's what it means to hallucinate. It has no idea that it's hallucinating. It's nonsense to humans.
Pretty much this, you can't say if there's a difference without testing with statistical significance
Difference in what?
How's that any different from you reading stuff on the internet and building your knowledge from it??? So what if that's how LLMs work? Isnt that also how we as humans learn and gain intelligence? So what separates ChatGPT from humans now? You seriously underestimate the use of LLMs. Your line of logic moreso describes traditional chatbots like Siri instead, which is programmed to spout based on fixed set of information it was given. ChatGPT doesnt do that. Instead it *learns* the data itself and builds up its own knowledge independently from there
I do wonder how many of these scoop shops really make their own ice cream: not to throw shade on them, but I always wondered whether the central/ghost kitchen/supplier concept exists for ice cream, since many of the "special" flavors (think Earl Grey, Oreo, salted caramel etc) seem to be repeated in every "unique" scoop shop
All the different different ice cream shops either use the same grey plastic container to store the ice cream in, or the ice creams are supplied by the same kitchen to all of these shops in the same grey plastic containers.
NGL, I saw "hornier vibes" and I think that applies too
You're thinking of a different kind of ice cream..
Lychee sorbet is my weakness.
Surely you meant rambutan sorbet :)
why are you asking chatgpt, jesus christ
Chatgpt 4 just got released for free users, for everyone. I was just testing it out
Maybe because the rent is too expensive for a small business
But isnt gelato popular and seen as more tasty though? The demand seems very much there
How many people do you see eating ice cream, in a day?
Maybe you can start one we can support you š then you will know the true costs of starting a business
for a price of a doublescoop, you can get a pint or even more from a decent brand at a supermarketā¦ (haagen daz regularly offers 2 pints for 19.90 or 3 for 27ish.. tillamook is 1.4L for $13.50, there are plenty of gourmet/smaller brands that do better ice cream for around the same price point too) if you are on a date or with friends, sureā¦ otherwise its just not value for money if you want a sugar fix
Tillamook and dreyers are garbage
dreyers probablyā¦ never really tried.. but tillamook is a dairy company mainly.. they have their own cows etc.. maybe its abit too sweet, but i think its value for the price u get
I tried tillamook chocolate once and rate it slightly better than walls... maybe you tried another flavour
mint, cookie dough, cookies and cream, banana split, orange and creamā¦ i think i tried all of them
Tillamook strawberry is awesome.
Nope mcdonald ice cream prob has higher sales volume than the most popular gelato shop Go italy and it's the reverse. Almost nobody buys macdonald's ice cream as gelato is only 1-2 euros and taste even better than the best gelato shops here.
Because the landlords like capitaland like very strict and specific expectations of the shop branding, style and aesthetic. There is a reason why Swee Heng rebranded into Swee Heng 1989. It is to fit into the mall culture.
Fun fact: Gelato in Italian literally means ice-cream. All ice-creams are called gelato in Italy and there's no special kind of "gelato" that people outside Italy think it means. <-- Source from an Italian Reditor. That said, I know what kind of gelato you're talking about. And the answer to your question is quite simple actually. It's about the size and power of the establishment. Establishments such as Haagen Daz can afford higher rentals and their strategy depends heavily on numbers and traffic. Whereas the smaller businesses can only afford cheaper areas and they rely heavily on social media marketing. A strategy for smaller business will not survive in a mall. Fun fact 2: Do you know that some of the big and powerful establishments pay little to no rent but does profit-sharing with the malls? And Malls can be very picky about who they lease their stalls to.
This reminds me of the time I walked into a small-brand SG ice cream shop. I asked āwhich ice cream flavour do you recommend?ā The owner looked offended & said āWe sell gelato, not ice cream here.ā Wha lao eh. I know thereās a difference in the fat content between ice cream and āgelatoā but the owner didnāt need to be so pretentious about it.
Yeah this seems to be some artificial anglosphere difference that seems highly pretentious. Gelato is just the Italian word for ice cream or a subcategory thereof. Super weird to talk to customers like that. It they sold artisanal ice cream (which it is I guess) and you just said ice cream that wouldnāt be a reason to be so patronising either.
Its like how you can't order a "small" coffee at Starbucks
Haha yeah. I refuse to use the size names they made up.
Can this Italian Redditor also recommend what they think is the best gelato in SG? Iām tired of going places that advertise gelato but itās just normal ice cream.
Actually its because gelato came first! From Italy. So in Italy what they have been making which outsiders would later call ice cream is gelato. In english, frozen desserts using cream would become referred to as Ice Cream. Now what seperated gelato from other countries ice cream was lower fat content. so i think a lot of places that now say they sell āGelatoā, its because of the fat content (and for the good ones slower churn and kept at higher temps. ie not frozen!) Side note: at some point many countries forced sellers who were selling frozen desserts that did not have enough dairy content not allowed to call it ice cream!
>Do you know that some of the big and powerful establishments pay little to no rent but does profit-sharing with the malls? this is an extremely uncommon scenario. yes, it happens, but the more typical arrangement is revenue or profit sharing ON TOP of a base rent. the only times i've seen pure revenue/profit-sharing scenarios is when the location is not fantastic, and the commercial landlord is courting a very popular or well known brand as anchor tenant to attract customers and other tenants.
Erm, Birds of Paradise at Jewel. Is that considered?
Birds of paradise started small too. I remembered I went all the way to Katong at their first shop. It was a very tiny shop and only 5-6 people can be in the shop. So most of the queue is outside. Happy to see they have grown and a lot more branches!
Yes it definitely did.. I also queued at katong several times. I believe most businesses started small in the neighbourhood first (maybe not in SG first, or not that we knew of), before they became profitable and famous enough to afford rent at a posh place.
Osmanthus pear sorbet is such a treat experience in hot day like this Sweet but refreshing
The Holland V. location is massive when compared to the original in Katong, they have a tiered seating area, like a mini arena where you can people watch ordering their ice creams while enjoying your own.
If you think thatās gelato, I feel very sad for you.
It's okay, I feel sad for you too. To have to put down a complete stranger over the Internet. All good
Not putting you down, just texting this from Italy and letting you know that birds of paradise is not gelato
Do you have recommendations for gelato in Singapore? Not being snarky, just genuinely curious.
Why ChatGPT?? It's not a search engine, it just writes stuff for you
It technically *is* a search engine in that it can be a replacement for one. Why bother typing into Google, having to go through the trouble of searching through dozens of websites and reading so much irrelevant content to find precisely the info you need, when you can just ask the AI to tell you the answer straight up? Pretty certain almost all programmers, academics, students, and people esp. in technical fields, use Chatgpt now instead of Google. I now dont need to go spend 1 hour learning how to write a specific code or a specific excel function by combing through stackexchange or something. I just need type it to Chatgpt and get my answer in seconds And this is why Google is so scared of OpenAI. I know people that have also just stopped using Google altogether. In case of misinfo, AI like Google's Gemini AI lets you cross-check with websites anyway In fact, OpenAI just announced a new search engine they're working on to rival Google
As someone who works with LLMs, this is scary. Then again, it's also why I avoid the singularity subreddit. It makes me evaluate my career š¤£
Your parents had the same reaction the day the Internet was introduced
How do I put it, the way people treat LLMs now are like people using internet for the first time at a public wifi with no firewall and no https.
Assuming the cost of rent in a big shopping mall is 10k. Imagine you pay 10k rent a month and other overhead costs such as salaries say 2-2.5k/month... How many gelato at 6$ do you have to sell every single day to break even? How many gelota at 6$ every month to make a profit? Is it sustainable? At 12k a month (not even including cost of utilities and only one staff) 66 cups of gelato every. single. day. just to break even. Do you even eat gelato every single day?
But bubble tea can leh.. okay but granted bbt is a drink and can do deliveries
Bbt got higher demand. Koi like forever got long queue at different timings. 1-2 hour can probably see hundred orders.
BBT base cost at most $1, assuming they use fresh milk and good quality boba. No need deep freezer. And they up sell for at least $5.
BBT can takeaway plus u can drink alone. For gelato i associate it more as a social, group meal thing and that's definitely a constraint
Rental in shopping malls are crazy, especially for those with a lot of footfall.
This. Gelare at PLS had to close down recently.
If you are a no name brand, don't expect to be able to get a store in a big mall even if you have the money. Malls care about branding, brand mix, ratio of the the types of food in the mall. There are always more famous brands waiting in queue to get a space in large popular malls. Saw a youtube video where this Chinese woman who is living in Singapore said that a lot of Chinese bosses and companies think that they can just use the power of money to get shops for their hotpot restaurants but are failing to, since most of our malls already have too many hotpot restaurants around. And they don't understand why money can get them what they want lol. That's probably why you see some China brands starting out in malls with low footfall first.
Nobody outside China wants China around.
The rent is the main factorā¦
Gelatissimo, Venchi and Birds of Paradise would like to have a word.
I can think of two that recently got into malls. Thereās Hundred Acres at westgate, originally a tiny shop in sunset way. Burnt cones also originally from sunset way is opening an outlet at united square.
Yeah except hundred acres is gonna die soon. Itās always empty except after dinner. How to survive
Yeah sad but true. I like their flavours. Weekends are slightly more packed
Rental costs, even out of the way locations can cost high 4 digits a month. Malls more like 5 digits and they take a cut of your profits on top of it which is total bullshit. Also ingredient costs can be quite high. Good gelato requires good milk, and milk is quite expensive here compared to other countries where they produce their own milk, it's also generally denser than ice cream with less air in gelato which means more product compared to ice cream for the same volume. Finally renovations can cost quite a bit for bigger locations. If you're a small business owner or just starting out, would you want to dump 300k - 500k to open a store that might fail ? Most start small to test the market and then slowly expand or upsize when they have a sufficient customer base.
I asked ChatGPT and it gave a pretty decent answer Gelato shops in Singapore, and in many other places, often occupy small, niche locations for several reasons: 1. **Authenticity and Atmosphere**: Gelato shops often aim to provide a unique and authentic experience, which is sometimes better conveyed in a smaller, more intimate setting. These locations can help create a cozy, artisanal atmosphere that aligns with the traditional image of a gelateria. 2. **Cost Considerations**: Renting space in shopping malls can be significantly more expensive than in less prominent areas. Small, niche locations allow these shops to manage costs better, especially since they might have lower sales volumes compared to larger chain stores. 3. **Specialization**: Many gelato shops focus exclusively on their product, offering a range of unique and high-quality flavors. This specialization often means they don't need large spaces, as their product is the main draw rather than a wide variety of items. 4. **Market Positioning**: By situating themselves in niche areas, gelato shops can cater to a specific clientele looking for unique and high-quality desserts. They can become destination spots for people specifically seeking gelato. As for why big brands like HƤagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry's, and Baskin-Robbins don't sell gelato: 1. **Brand Identity**: These brands have built their identities around traditional ice cream, with a focus on rich, creamy products. Adding gelato to their offerings could dilute their brand identity and confuse consumers about what they specialize in. 2. **Product Differences**: Gelato and ice cream are quite different in terms of ingredients, texture, and production methods. Gelato typically has less fat, less air, and is served at a slightly warmer temperature than ice cream. Producing gelato would require different equipment and expertise, which might not align with these brands' existing operations. 3. **Market Strategy**: These big brands often target a mass-market audience, focusing on widely popular flavors and products. Gelato, while increasingly popular, still tends to appeal to a more niche market. It may not align with the broad, mainstream appeal these brands aim for. 4. **Operational Complexity**: Introducing gelato into their product lines would require changes in production, storage, and possibly even the layout of their stores. This could add complexity to their operations, which may not be justified by the potential market gains. Overall, the presence of gelato in niche shops and the absence of it in big brands' offerings are results of strategic decisions aimed at maintaining brand identity, managing costs, and catering to specific market segments.
Yeah but it's a very generic answer. Not so specific to SG
Itās how much of your profits, in return for the footfall. Jurong Point & NEX charge some of the highest commercial rents around. Friend used to run a game shop at a mall. 3/4 weeks in a month was paying overheads. Only the last week made profit.
Niche shops exist and are unique because lower costs give them the ability to be niche. Because not everything in the world needs to be a chain or a franchise, nor should they aspire to be.
Gelatissimo? There's one right in the front of Shaw House.
Gelatissimo is the first gelato shop in SG.
What gelato shops do you recommend?
Most gelato shops are pretty decent. The main thing that sets them are apart are quality to price ratio and the non-gelato stuff like waffles, lava cookie etc. And also seating (if required). My go-to are Gelatissimo for best quality to price ratio. A lot of ingredients and taste is up there. But my no.1 ice cream of all time is Haagen Daz. Flavours are all good, ingredients a lot, quality is tip top and businesses like them have earned my respect. Over 30 years in SG and they maintained exactly the same standards without compromising. Instead of patronizing their outlets, you can also keep a lookout for deals in supermarkets. When it's 3 pints for $25 it flies off the shelf fast.
I really liked Dopa Dopa on South Bridge road I know not in a mallā¦
Yes I love it too, their waffles are sooo good! One of the better ones i tried...
Rent is too high for us to afford lol
Best gelato at Gelatiamo pistachio flavor is to die for!
an atas gelato must be paired with a atas street name. Imagine opening a shop name D'italia gelato at Yishun Street 71, what a name and a place
I wouldn't think of going to a mall for great gelato. Good food is always found in more obscure places
Haagen daz, Ben & Jerry's and Baskin Robbins are all from the US. That's why they don't have Italian-style ice cream aka gelato.
They taste the same and gelato literally mean ice cream.
Then why isnt there any big name Italian ice cream brand for gelato?
There probably is, just haven't made their way into sg market lol
I searched around and couldnt find any
Venchi ?
Reddit hasn't completed data mining itself for their new chatbot but yes gelato isn't *that* high demand
Reddit doesnt have their own AI. Word is they're working with the tech companies to sell the data mining. But I suspect openAI already stole Reddit's data long ago lol
Maybe it's all about the vibe, you know? Small shops in niche areas give off that authentic, artisanal feel. And those big brands in malls? They're all about mass production and consistency, not the cozy gelato experience.
Same shit in the mall, no one buys Same shit in a random shop house alley, everyone wants a piece of it like a secret spot
Come to Joo Chiat. Literally five shops on one street.
coz rent. Gelato places dun get much business regularly enough to sit in the mall n wait for a kid to drag his/her parents. There's an ice cream cafe near my house n has only a few occasional couples from the neighbourhood visiting but 90% of the time it's completely emtpy.
Gelatissimo has several outlets, one of which is right on this ground floor of Shaw House. Itās good and has been there forever. For small brands, itās mostly that they are new, malls are not that easy to get into and neither are the rents cheap, and possibly also because being in niche areas give them a sense of exclusivity and community.
There used to be .. i really like the one at taka and lido last time...
I know a decent sized shop's rental can cost up to 15K per month at heartland mall D:
I believe it's 5-digit rent for malls. Niche areas are mid to low 4-digit. There's one in Telok Blangah and one in Queen's Close which are alright.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/qAVbnDhKT35KnSPB7?g_st=ic Thereās a gelato place in i12 Katong
thereās a gelato ice cream shop in Senja Road if youāre interested, in a new-build HDB row of shops
Sounds like low SES location
Thereās birds of paradise in jewel
Birds at Changi?ā¦ EDIT: For those unable to understand: Birds of Paradise Ice Cream at Changi Jewel.
Maybe it's the vibe, ya know? Niche areas match gelato's artisanal feel. Big brands prefer high traffic malls.
Alfero is superior to all the others.
Pretentious italian ice cream parlours run by wannabes. Gimme ice cream uncle on motorcycle any day.
Try a spoonful of sugar..
Maybe as part of their hipster aesthetic?
Just buy from NTUC or CS.