If everyone were to upload at least one hawker stall, think of the speed at which The Hawkers would grow. The anonymity of the listing process makes me think of masked heroes. But even heroes have a responsibility, which in this case, is to upload accurate and updated facts.
For now, what I do is to cross-check information on the internet to verify that the stated locations are accurate. What I initially visualized was for each hawker to have a front cover photo of their stall, along with a menu displaying their food items. But some are still unfamiliar with the system, and have simply uploaded their entire menu on the website. There’s definitely a lot that could be improved on and we’re slowly ironing out the details—it’s a work in progress!
The last time we spoke, The Hawkers had some 13 listings and had just welcomed a new entrant from Penang. Is there anything you’d like to say to our readers to get those numbers in the hundreds, and for listings to cover both West and East Malaysia?
The response has been great! We are at 21 user-generated listings now.
With Covid-19, it’s been tough for everyone, but some of these hawkers depend on daily wages and still have expenses to pay. They’ve fed us for the longest time, now it’s time for us to help them. List them on the website if you can. If not, just support them. Take pictures of the hawkers you purchase food from as well as their signature dishes, and share the pictures across your social media channels so that word gets out.
Moving forward, we want to build a reviews section for customers to pitch their top-rated hawker food—something akin to crowdsourcing reviews that would be called FoodAdvisor! We’re open to introducing new features to the website too, so if anyone has suggestions, feel free to drop us an email at info@studio20.my.