page_title: Ya Kun Kaya Toast
section_title: Products and stores
hierarchical_section_title: Ya Kun Kaya Toast / Products and stores
caption_attribution_description: English: Toast, eggs and coffee served at Ya Kun Koya Toast
context_page_description: Ya Kun Kaya Toast is a Singaporean chain of mass-market, retro-ambience cafés selling toast products, soft-boiled eggs and coffee. Founded by Loi Ah Koon in 1944, Ya Kun remained a small family-run stall for decades, but has expanded rapidly since Loi's youngest son headed the business in 1999. The chain has over fifty outlets, mostly franchised, across 14 countries, and is a Singaporean cultural icon, known for its traditional brand identity and conservative, people-centric corporate culture.
context_section_description: Ya Kun Kaya Toast has over forty Singaporean outlets, about half of which are franchised, and over thirty overseas outlets, all franchised, across seven countries (China, Indonesia, Japan, Myanmar, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines and United Arab Emirates); they plan to expand to Brunei, India, Malaysia, the Maldives, and Thailand in future. The stores have a retro ambiance, with wooden tables and stools, a Chinese calligraphy of the company name, posters about their history, and traditional methods of preparing food and customer service reflecting Chinese family values. Unlike their main competitors, they have a limited menu that revolves around their core product, kaya toast, with cheese, peanut butter and ice cream as alternative spreads for their thin, brown, crispy bread. To appeal to a wider demographic, Ya Kun also sells French toast and Toastwiches (their Asian alternative to sandwiches).
  Prices at local Ya Kun stores are slightly higher than those at kopitiams, but lower than prices of comparable products at Western coffeehouse chains operating in Singapore, while food at overseas Ya Kun outlets is relatively expensive. All outlets obtain their ingredients from the same suppliers and some ingredients, notably the kaya and coffee powder, are made at the Ya Kun factory in Bedok, using recipes that only a few of the Loi family know. The chain are "widely regarded as an institution of good kaya toast" and "a Singaporean cultural icon" that the Singapore Tourism Board has promoted as a tourist attraction. A Ming Pao review praised the "crispy but not hard, fragrant but not burnt" toast and fresh kaya, while a Straits Times review described the toast as "evenly sliced" and of "the right texture", the eggs as "cooked to perfection" and the teh tarik as "not too milky and not overpoweringly sweet either".
caption: Kaya toast with boiled eggs and coffee is the signature dish of Ya Kun Kaya Toast.
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