Punggol East Container Park to close after almost 10 years, netizens bemoan loss

If you have yet to visit the Punggol East Container Park, the next two months might be your last chance to do so.

The unique dining and drinking spot, which has been operating for about 10 years, will reportedly be closing by Nov 1 and demolished ahead of residential development in the area.

This was first stated by The Smok Hous, a tenant of the container park, in a video posted on Saturday (Aug 29).

The halal barbecue eatery said that it received the news in July and was told it will have to eventually vacate.

"It's definitely not the news we were hoping for and we didn't expect our time here to end this soon," owner Isrudy Shaik said in the video.

[embed]https://www.tiktok.com/@thesmokhous/video/7679048501589839112[/embed]

The post also captured several iconic features of Punggol East Container Park such as the old food trucks, a leaning lamp post, as well as the restaurants housed in refurbished shipping containers.

Isrudy also encouraged existing and new customers to come visit as well as enjoy the food and ambience the location has to offer.

"Bring the family, bring your friends, order your favourites and make one last Smok Hous memory with us," he said.

In response to queries by AsiaOne, The Smok Hous stated that it had been informed of Punggol East Container Park's upcoming closure via a WhatsApp message from its landlord stating that the land the container park was on will be taken back by the government.

"When we signed the contract in November last year, we weren't informed that the land will be taken back in October this year. We only found out in July that we needed to move out by Nov 1," the business told us.

The news has garnered a myriad of reaction from netizens, with some lamenting the impending loss of their favourite supper spots and others pointing out how such spaces often get sidelined to make way for housing.

One comment under The Smok Hous' Instagram post read: "No... [there was] finally something good in Punggol and this happens."

Another netizen shared that this spot was "one of the open spaces near HDB flats where you can see the vast open sky and beautiful sun set".

"Love this area, hard to find pockets of unblocked spaces in our highly built-up heartlands," they added.

In a post on r/singapore on Reddit, a user wrote: "Seems like nowadays any news related to infrastructure or development in Singapore is just anything that makes life a little more interesting being demolished for HDBs."

Many users agreed with this statement, with one commenter writing: "It's always upsetting to see more novel places like these being replaced by increasingly generic infrastructure."

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