SEBERANG PERAI, Feb 20 — Butterworth may not be busy a township as it used to be in the Seventies but many businesses continue to thrive.
Trading shops, restaurants, coffee shops, florists, sundry shops and a variety of small businesses have carried on despite the drop in traffic and customers.
While most were set up by men, there are some operated solely by women. In fact, some are managed by at least three generations of women!
Think City is mapping out a special Women’s Day Walk to showcase these very businesses:
Poly Bakery
4144, Jalan Bagan Luar,
Bagan Luar,
Butterworth.
Time: 7.30am-9.30pm
Choh Yuet How started this small bakery more than 40 years ago. Today, her daughters and son help her run the place.
They have continued baking bread, traditional cookies and cakes using the recipes Choh started out with.
“My sister bakes the bread, my brother bakes the cakes and my youngest sister and I help at the counter and around the shop,” said Christine Chew.
Her sister Chew Poh Ling is in charge of making several different types of bread from sweet buns to rolls and wholemeal buns while her brother Kok Keong bakes cream cakes to order.
“We also make our own traditional cookies for Chinese New Year each year, all using our own traditional recipes,” Christine said.
Their mother oversees the whole operation and delivers bread orders to their customers.
Sin Bee Chew Restaurant
11, Lorong Bagan Luar 3,
Bagan Luar, Butterworth.
Time: 12pm-2.45pm, 5pm-8pm
Closed on weekends
The Leng sisters run and manage this restaurant; the third generation to do so.
“We took over from our mother and our mother took over from our grandmother,” one of the sisters said.
“There’s nothing special about an all-women enterprise, my mother had a lot of daughters, that’s all,” she added.
There is a total 10 siblings, seven of whom are women but only four of the sisters took over the business.
It all began when their grandmother started a small restaurant back in the 1940s near the ferry terminal.
When the place burned down, the family relocated the restaurant to its current location in 1971 and named it Sin Bee Chew.
Today, the Leng sisters and two of their children are operating the restaurant. It is well known for its Hailam Chicken Chop and other traditional Hailam dishes.
Uniquely, the restaurant uses only halal-certified chicken and other ingredients so it is frequented by all races.
Perniagaan Yip Fong
82, Jalan Kampung Benggali,
Butterworth
Time: 10am-8.30pm
Closed on Sundays and public holidays
This sewing supplies shop is hardly noticeable tucked away among the squat shophouses on Jalan Kampung Benggali.
Originally a sundry shop in the 1970s, it now sells sewing supplies and provides basic alteration services.
P’ng Boon Chye started the sundry shop back in the 1970s but he was away at work most of the time during that period so his wife Betty Yeoh managed the shop.
Over the years, as business slowed down, she changed the business to offer custom-made clothing and tailoring services.
“I used to make tailored clothes but it was hard to hire assistants so in the end I changed the business again and we started selling sewing supplies instead,” Yeoh said.
Today, Yeoh is assisted by her daughter Sherene P’ng, her husband and a worker.
“It’s not easy to hire help so we do what we can manage such as basic alteration services and selling supplies,” she said.
Aneka Reka
Jalan Telaga Air,
Butterworth
Time: 10.30am-9pm
This is a new dessert shop and library set up by Hasmawati Zainul Abidin.
She shares the space with her husband Mohamad Azahari Maaz who operates a barber shop next to hers.
“I want to have a space for students to sit and read so I am slowly stocking up my library with books,” she said.
Hasmawati sells traditional ais potong and she jazzes it up with artsy decor or serves it up like a hotdog in a bun to students who often frequent the shop.
Though she previously lived and worked in Kuala Lumpur, Hasmawati grew up in Butterworth.
“We feel it is time to come back to our hometown so that’s why we are here,” she said.
Apart from these four businesses there are more amidst the mix of new and old shops around old town Butterworth that are helmed by women.
*Think City is undertaking urban regeneration programmes for George Town, Kuala Lumpur and Johor. Find out more about Think City and its projects at thinkcity.com.my.
