Could anyone comment on if this is an exaggeration? After commuting plus basic life tasks like bathing etc, this would allow him for a realistic maximum of 5 hours of sleep a day. And that is optimistic as likely this results in about 4 hours a day.
It seems like the story of a person who has gone 35 years on 4 hours of sleep a day is possibly more interesting than a Michelin star if this is true.
If the proprietor does his own shopping, he may start at 5-6 AM and finish clean-up at 8:30 PM, for a "workday" of about 15 hours. There may have been some respite pre-Michelin but now it should be just an hour or two to nap before service begins.
An hour commute each way is not rare for modern hawkers, who in times past might have worked near home for convenience or in the business district for more customers. Now they have to work where the rent is low--and rent inevitably ratchets up as revenue does. Some landlords in Singapore install CCTV at the till to track receipts and make sure they get their pound.
Given the reported increase of only 20% production (180 chickens up from 150), this stall's incredible journey could come to an end when its lease comes up for renewal.
[1] https://guide.michelin.sg/en/2016-guide/hong-kong-soy-sauce-...
2-3 hours of food preparation in the early morning. 12 hours of manning his stall. The remaining hours for commuting and other work things maybe.
It is likely with the michelin star he can work fewer hours. He can choose to close his stall once he sells all his meat.
It is a hard way of making a living.
He will likely be able to raise money now though
Many of us would have days and weeks of high working hour counts, but very rarely would it be sustained for many months on end.
Yeah, it's still work, but it's probably not a hard, strenuous job for all 17 hours of the day.
A good example of this is 328 Katong Laksa, once Singapore's most famous hawker stall, which has fragmented into at least half a dozen competing variants: one's at the original location, one has the license to the name, some are run by the original dude's family, etc.