What it takes to turn a 5-room HDB flat into a private dining pizzeria

What it takes to turn a 5-room HDB flat into a private dining pizzeria A shared love of pizza has turned into a home-based business. Limited space, demanding schedules and contrasting working styles are now tests David Shen and Sheralyn Tay must navigate, as captured by On The Red Dot. SINGAPORE: A married couple are busy preparing a pizza dinner for eight guests in their Yishun flat when they receive a last-minute request: Can they accommodate a ninth guest? “Easy-peasy,” the husband says. The look on his wife’s face says otherwise. “No, it’s not, okay? We have to move a lot of things,” Sheralyn Tay counters before bustling to reset the table. As her stress level rises, hubby David Shen languidly brings out a stool from their household shelter. “Sheralyn gets a little bit nervous when it comes to a little bit of last-minute changes,” he says. “But you know, that’s life.” This is not just another day in married life, however, for the couple, both 45. For two years, they have welcomed paying guests to their five-room flat through their private dining business, PXZA, which they juggle with their day jobs. And it takes more than pizza-making skills to pull off these dinners. With home-based business regulations preventing them from hiring external help, the couple must handle everything themselves — with limited kitchen space and limited time between each course they serve. On this evening, they are debuting a new pizza flavour, Coney Dog, which added a couple of hours to their preparation. With a last-minute extra guest and their different working styles, can they keep their 12-course pizza dinner on track? On The Red Dot’s Hustle In My HDB returns for a second season to follow Singaporeans like them and explore how they navigate constraints and family life while running businesses in their homes. “I’M OBSESSED WITH PIZZA” Shen and Tay’s home-based pizzeria has its origins in the pandemic, when Shen was craving Neapolitan-style pizza — which is best eaten fresh from the oven and not as a takeaway, the couple agree. So they borrowed an oven from a friend and tried making it themselves. Those early attempts were “quite terrible”, Tay recalls. But they persisted, testing their dough about three times a week, with friends sampling the results. WATCH: We turned our HDB flat into a pizza private dining space in Singapore (14:46) Eventually, one friend wanted to bring along his family for a meal, offering to pay and suggesting that the couple host private dinners. Thus they created PXZA, with omakase-style dining and menus featuring the freshest ingredients they can source. It is a passion project fuelled by their shared love of pizza. “I’m obsessed with pizza. I’m obsessed with the dough,” says Shen, a marketing consultant, who sees their private dinner parties as a way of building a community of “pizza fanatics”. Tay, who runs an editorial consultancy and co-owns a fashion brand, has always found joy in cooking and in hosting others. “I love feeding people, and David loves making pizza,” she says. But the pursuit of their shared passion requires good time management. Even as they both mainly work from home, their pizza preparations must fit around their day jobs. To ease the workload on dinner days, which are Fridays and Saturdays, they get their toppings and other ingredients ready in advance. Saturdays are especially hectic for Tay, who may start work at her fashion brand’s studio or workshop at 8am and return home at 3pm or 4pm, with not long to go before guests arrive. “When I come home, it’s bang, bang, bang,” she says. “Get things done.” FROM “FRIDGE JENGA” TO MISSHAPEN PIZZA Meal prep is only part of the challenge. PXZA’s ingredients occupy about 60 per cent of the couple’s fridge and freezer, leaving Tay to play what she calls “fridge Jenga” to fit in their own meals too. Kitchen counter space is also limited. Shen sometimes moves his dough to the air-conditioned living room to keep it cool and free up space, while using ice during mixing to prevent it rising too quickly in Singapore’s heat and humidity. The couple have divided the work according to their strengths. Shen makes the dough and bakes the pizzas. He uses Excel spreadsheets for dough-making, which he says involves “a bit of chemistry”. But when it comes to toppings and flavours, he prefers to be “a bit more spontaneous (and) creative”. Tay, meanwhile, brings structure and consistency to his ideas by managing inventory, the planning and written recipes. “He’s a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of guy — things will just work out,” she says. “Who makes it work out? I do, right?” She also takes charge of the plating and hosting. And she decides which of his “crazy ideas” make the cut, often rejecting dishes that are difficult to prepare ahead of time or to reproduce consistently, for example. She saw potential in his Coney Dog pizza, however, and agreed to it despite the hours needed to prepare its chilli con carne base. “It’s also very fun to be playing around with new things,” acknowledges Tay. She appreciates how he pushes her beyond her comfort zone. His calmness can also soothe her nerves, like when he told her before the dinner where they debuted their new pizza: “Deep breath, dear.” Shen, in turn, credits her with getting things “back on the rails” with her practical approach. When a misshapen pizza emerged from the oven, for example, she arranged the slices to make it look rounder before serving it. Even with their differences to iron out after more than two decades together, she sees this as a natural part of getting things done rather than “a bad thing” to avoid. They work through their disagreements while planning each meal so they can focus on serving guests. Once dinner service begins, she says, “we’re a team — we work together”. FOR THE FUN OF IT, NOT THE FUNDS FROM IT With teamwork, the couple successfully accommodated their extra guest and served all 12 courses, which meant Tay could breathe a “huge sigh of relief”. Their new pizza, which Shen termed “a labour of love”, was also well-received. Given the effort involved, with hours spent preparing and hosting each dinner, and the quality of the ingredients, Tay thinks the S$100 they charge per person is reasonable. PXZA is not their main income source, and they have no plans to change that. “Revenue isn’t really the most important thing for us,” says Shen. He calls their home-based business “a hobby that funds itself”, whose earnings pay for better ingredients, kitchen equipment and other “toys” they might not otherwise buy. They rely on word of mouth for custom rather than actively marketing the venture. Although they aim to host two dinners weekly, work and social engagements mean they may take bookings for fewer than half the slots each month. Even then they see a need to improve the way they manage the workload. Tay handles most of the grocery shopping and the scheduling, and Shen acknowledges that he could take on more to ease her stress. “I hope that he steps up a bit more,” Tay concurs. Storage space is another aspect that may need addressing. They are considering a minor renovation to add more cupboards to their living room. They have also discussed collaborating with friends who run restaurants, although such projects would have to fit with their existing commitments. Opening their own restaurant, meanwhile, is not on the cards for now. Shen prefers to focus on making “great pizzas” rather than managing profit and loss, while Tay values the freedom from overheads, staff wages and other business obligations. “It’d be nice to continue to welcome people into our home and feed them,” she says. “There’s nothing better than making people feel happy.” And how long may that continue? “As long as it remains fun,” says Shen. Watch this Hustle In My HDB story here. The series also features an entrepreneur who turned her bedroom into a beauty studio and now sleeps in her parents’ room. The programme, On The Red Dot, airs on Channel 5 on Fridays at 9.30pm.