In 2021, Pang Gek Teng returned to Singapore from Australia with just S$320 to her name.

She had been running three cafes in Melbourne when the country’s infamous bush fires and the global COVID pandemic put the nail in the coffin for her business.

After paying for her one-way ticket home, she had barely enough savings to tide her over for a week.  

Having had a string of four other failed businesses prior to that, the then 33-year-old thought her entrepreneurial dreams were over, and returned home to become a salaried worker.

Within three years, however, her fortunes dramatically transformed.

Gek Teng is now the chief executive of Surrey Hills Grocer Group, which runs five Australian-style café-cum-grocer outlets and three other restaurants. The company is on track to hitting $20 million in revenue this year, with a 500-strong staff team under her leadership.

“I have been an average person my whole life, but God can use anyone. Through my crazy journey, I have come to see more clearly the One who holds the pen of my story … I know who is writing my story,” Gek Teng, now 36, told Salt&Light.

Gek with her two dogs at Surrey Hills headquarters. Her love for pets has prompted her to make some of her outlets pet-friendly, with them curating special menus for those furry friends.

Not one who was academically inclined, Gek Teng did badly for her O Levels.

Scoring over 20 points in a competitive cohort year of dragon babies meant that she could not qualify for most courses at polytechnic.

On the advice of her Chinese teacher, Gek Teng went to private school SHATEC to get a diploma in tourism management. She did well and became one of the course’s top students.

When she graduated, her father had one last instruction for her.

“He told me that I can do anything I wanted in life as long as I get a university degree first. Only then would he feel that he had done his portion as a father,” said Gek Teng.

Gek Teng with her parents.

Uninterested in further studies but knowing that her father’s request was “non-negotiable”, Gek Teng simply searched for a university course that commenced the soonest.

“I wanted to get it over and done with so I didn’t care much about choosing properly,” she said.

She enrolled in PSB Academy, a partner of the University of Newcastle in Australia. The final year of her management and marketing degree had to be completed in Australia. She enjoyed campus life in Australia, and the country gave her the space and freedom to dream about her future.  

When she was done with getting a degree, however, Gek Teng succumbed to external expectations again when she returned back to Singapore. Many of her relatives are in banking, so she also went into the industry.

She joined Citibank International Personal Bank in 2012, handling mainly foreign clients. Though she was an “average” banker, she could pull in up to S$20,000 a month. It was enough for her to splurge on branded goods and invest in two apartments.

Waking up to the alarm clock instead of a purpose 

“But I realised that every day, it was the alarm clock that woke me up for work. I did not wake up to a sense of purpose,” she told Salt&Light.

So she sold off her luxury bags and watches, and used the money to start her own watch business: Daybook Watches.

She was only in her 20s when she made appointments with suppliers and travelled alone to Shenzhen to meet with them and visit their factories.

Her gutsy attitude also got her watches stocked at Tangs department store.

“I told them it was my first business and they just gave me a space at zero cost,” said Gek Teng, who designed the watches herself.

However, the business, along with a couple of side hustles, did not take off. It left her wondering if she was cut out for business.

Singapore felt like a place of failure for her. In 2017, she bought a one-way ticket to Melbourne to “escape” as she had peaceful memories of the place from her undergraduate days.

“I had romantic ideas that inspiration for my next steps would just hit me while I travelled around,” said Gek Teng.

Instead, what hit her was a healthy dose of reality. She knew she could no longer afford accommodation on a per day rate so she called a few agents and tried to rent a property for the longer term.

“Most property owners did not want to rent to me because if they did further checks, they would have found out that I didn’t even have a permanent visa to live in Australia,” she noted.

However, an agent called her out of the blue one day. The agent also only had one question for her: “Are you a Christian?”

Gek Teng said yes.

She believed in Jesus from the time she first ventured into RiverLife Church as a teen when her good friend had a crush on a boy who was from that church. 

Hearing her reply, the agent immediately asked her to go over to the unit to collect the keys and complete the paperwork.

“That door was open for me. I thought it could be a sign for me to stay on there and see what I could do in Australia. On hindsight, God was with me every step of the way even though I had drifted away from Him,” said Gek Teng.

The place she rented was in Chirnside Park, a suburb near Yarra Valley. It was near many farms and wineries.

The townhouse that Gek Teng rented.

The next morning after she collected the keys and woke up on a mattress in the empty house, she knew she had to get cracking so that she could pay rent. She then hit on the idea of selling protein bowls using fresh farm produce that was easily available in her vicinity.

Gek Teng with fresh produce from Australia’s farms.

Gek Teng with a farmer in Australia.

So she bought a printer and started printing posters and flyers, which featured a picture of the beef don bowl that she had cooked and photographed. She distributed the flyers around the estate and people started calling her to order the bowls.

“I was interested in cooking so I just taught myself by watching YouTube cooking videos,” said Gek Teng.

Surch (a blend of “surprise” and “lunch”) started as a one-man home delivery service, but the farm-to-table concept soon caught on. She later opened three outlets in shopping centres such as Forest Hill Chase and Greensborough Plaza in Melbourne.

Gek Teng at one of her Surch’s outlets.

Things seemed promising but Gek Teng also struggled to keep the business afloat.

It was during that time that she began to experience God more intimately, through her time at Hillsong Church in Melbourne.

“God seemed to speak to me through every sermon that I heard there. That strengthened me and prepared me for another week of challenges at my outlets,” said Gek Teng.

A Surch outlet in Melbourne.

One huge challenge was the 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires in Victoria.

“The bush fires burnt most of the crops so the prices of the vegetables soared. My cashflow was really tight,” she said.

She could not pay her staff for three months, yet they stood by her and continued working.

When she told the suppliers to stop delivering fresh produce to her as she could not pay them, they simply told her to just pay them what she had for the day.

No more petty cash in the till 

“I was emptying tip boxes to pay the suppliers so that they would not walk away from the shop without any payment, so much so that on one day, I had no spare petty cash in the till for walk-in customers,” said Gek Teng.

Desperate, she prayed and asked God to help her – if that the day’s customers would all make electronic payments, she would not need to find spare change for them.

“It was near impossible because cash was still the main mode of payment back then. But God came through and everyone who came in that day used card payments only,” said Gek Teng.

“There were so many bigger problems in the world out there but this showed me how even the small things of our lives matter to our heavenly Father,” she added.

The business survived – but not for long. COVID dealt it a final, fatal blow.

In March 2021, Gek crammed all her belongings into one suitcase and returned to Singapore with just A$362 (S$320) in her pocket.  

As she stood waiting for her luggage at the conveyor belt at the airport, she talked to God.

“God, You say You always save the crushed and broken-hearted. Will You really save me?” she asked Him.

She had returned home with nothing to her name, only a string of failed businesses.

Grasping at straws, there and then at the conveyor belt, she decided to go to RiverLife Church’s website and fill up a form to be connected to someone there. She knew she needed all the spiritual support she could get.

In her mind, she also rehearsed countless times the explanation she would give her parents when she took the first step back into their home.  

When she stepped in, however, her parents did not probe about her business failure. Instead, her father handed her an envelope containing S$2,000, which helped her sleep better the next few days.

Gek Teng with her family members.

Conceding defeat to her entrepreneurial dreams, she decided to be a “normal” person again, as her parents often nagged her to be. She sent out 40 job applications, but did not land even one interview.

A friend got her a job in the family’s noodle manufacturing business, but her ideas were considered too “futuristic” for the company to adopt.

A pillar of truth to cling on to

At that time, Pastor Sarah from RiverLife Church – who reached out just hours after Gek Teng’s desperate enquiry – spoke life into her spirit.

“She told me that I am made for a purpose and that I have to trust that this purpose was already created when I was created in my mother’s womb. This truth formed a pillar in me that I clung on to,” said Gek Teng.

It gave her the courage to quit her job, despite knowing that she would be disappointing her parents once again.

She began to dream again, and toyed with the idea of building a business that made crepes.

Eager to start small, she saw a shop unit up for rent online and texted the person-in-charge of it.

“In the end, we spent just five minutes viewing the shop and the other 55 minutes I was telling him my business plan. We hit it off so well that after the meeting, I realised he was the person I needed to work with as his strengths covered my weaknesses,” said Gek Teng.

Through this divine appointment, Gek Teng serendipitously found a willing co-founder for her upcoming business. However, both of them were still unsure of the form it would take.

Gek Teng and her first co-founder, Aiden, at their deli along Battery Road which serves Melbourne-style sandwiches. He has since sold his shares to another shareholder.

While driving one day, Gek Teng had a “download” from God.

“The thought just came to me that God did not put me in Australia for no reason. I knew my upcoming business had to be Australia-centric,” she said.

Leveraging on her former contacts of farmers and suppliers in Australia, she hit on the idea of opening an Australia-centric grocery, with a small café linked to it that would show customers how they could use the fresh produce from the store in their cooking.

Gek Teng sourcing for fresh produce in Australia, such as black truffle, for Surrey Hills Grocer in Singapore.

Surrey Hills Fish Farm, located in Pasir Ris, where barramundi fish and mussels are grown to support their farm-to-table vision.

Gek Teng visiting Yarra Valley Dairy, a brand carried at Surrey Hills Grocer.

This was the biggest idea she has had among all her prior business ventures, and she needed the funding to put it off.

A family friend volunteered to put in S$400,000 without much persuasion as he trusted her.

But Gek Teng was burdened by the decision of whether or not to accept the money. If she failed, her parents warned her that they would not be able to help her to pay him back.  

A guiding vision 

As she brushed her teeth one morning, she had a vision.

Before her eyes, she saw two birds on the thin branch of a tree. One bird asked the other: “What if I fall?”

The other replied: “What if you don’t?” as he spread his wings and flew off.

“This vision came out of the blue. I knew it was God’s guidance. So, I went to collect the cheque from my family friend straightaway,” said Gek Teng.

That was the start of Surrey Hills Grocer, which opened at the D’Arena Country Club in Jurong in December 2021.

Surrey Hills’ first outlet in Jurong, which has since been replaced by its Woodleigh Mall outlet.

Cereal-crusted French toast, one of the brunch items on Surrey Hills cafe menu.

Surrey Hills prides itself on its farm-to-table concept, serving barramundi from its own farm.

Despite its obscure location (a few minutes away from Tuas checkpoint), the pet-friendly grocer-cum café broke even in six months. Its success led to the opening of more outlets in prime areas: Ion Orchard, Raffles City, Woodleigh Mall, One Holland Village and its latest and largest outlet so far – an over 6,000-sq-ft space at VivoCity.

Surrey Hills’ latest outlet at VivoCity.

Surrey Hills Ion has been pivotal to the group’s growth.

Gek Teng’s years of relationship building with farmers from Australia paid off when they trusted her to bring in their produce into Singapore.

The Surrey Hills Grocer Group also unveiled three new dining concepts – Japanese, Spanish and Taiwanese restaurants – at Raffles City this year.

Surrey Hills’ first new brand opening: Mensho Tokyo Ramen at Raffles City.

Spanish restaurant Movida in Melbourne, a brand which Surrey Hills brought to Singapore.

“Looking back, I was not the one who held this entire grand plan. God placed the right people along the way to guide me forward and point me to see things a certain way,” said Gek Teng, who worships at RiverLife Church.

Gek with Ps Sarah (in floral dress) and her husband, with other church friends at Surrey Hills’ first outlet in Jurong.

Knowing how it feels to start from humble beginnings, she makes it a point to use the Surrey Hills platform to collaborate with other small-time or home-based chefs so as to give them more support and exposure.

Gek Teng’s team at Surrey Hills Grocer celebrated her recent birthday by dressing up like her.

Her journey is far from over. She hit the lowest point in her life last year when she was faced with some business and legal troubles. Fortunately, no charges were filed.

“I was very troubled over what was happening because I was afraid it would affect my family or the people who were working for me,” said Gek Teng.

The ordeal drove her to God, and she learnt to trust Him to vindicate her.

Gek was baptised in Riverlife Church last year.

During that time, there was once she was at Sunday service in church when she kept hearing a prompting from God to “go to the Cross and kneel”.

The prompting was persistent during the one-hour sermon but she was equally persistent in refusing to go down. She was seated at the back row in the auditorium and feared what others would think should she make her way down in such a noticeable manner.

“Some of the church members know me as the CEO of Surrey Hills so I didn’t want to embarrass myself as some may wonder what crisis has happened in my life,” she admitted.

A staff gathering of Surrey Hills Group in October this year.

After the sermon ended, she again heard the same instruction from God. Before she could tarry any longer, she felt a nudge on her shoulder that turned her body towards the staircase that led to the Cross.

“No one pushed me. It was a supernatural force. As I made my way down the 50 steps to the stage, I felt lighter and lighter, as if all the burdens on my shoulders lifting. When I reached the Cross, I again felt a supernatural push and I automatically collapsed and knelt at the Cross,” said Gek Teng.

It was a humbling moment of surrender for her.

“I told God I am done with building things on my own strength. I give my life back to Him for Him to do his work in me.”

She felt like a child who had been messing around with the keys of a piano, making weird sounds.

“But when God, the master pianist, came, he didn’t stop me from playing. Instead, He stretched out His arm and played his notes in between my own playing. The result is a beautiful melody – because of His relentless pursuit of me.”

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