He Took His Own Name Off The Sign. It Took Eight Years To Find Out What That Cost.

He spent eight years selling his own food under other names — including one deliberate move upmarket — and none of it took, even after the chain carrying his name folded and stopped trading against him. Then he put the name back on the door and sold out by 3pm. The brand was the asset.

In Singapore, Botak Jones was the default answer to cheap Western food. I assumed the name was just a name.

There's a real Botak Jones. He was born in Detroit. And for eight years he sold much of the same food under a different name, and it never took off.

Here's what I didn't know until recently:

Bernie Utchenik came to Asia in 1991 as an oil industry engineer.

He opened the first Botak Jones in 2003, in an eating house in Tuas. It wasn't an accessible spot, and he chose it on purpose. He had worked the Tuas shipyards himself. He'd watched colleagues refuse the local food and drive to the Burger King at Taman Jurong for lunch. Western food out there was, he said, a no-brainer.

Botak is Malay for bald. The logo is his head.

At its peak the chain ran 13 outlets. That is his own figure.

In 2011 a group of investors took a majority stake in the chain.

In mid-2013 he and his wife sold the business and left.

Two to three weeks later he was back in, under a different name. BJ's American Diner and Grill. It became Big Bern's later that year.

In 2015 his former partners folded the Botak Jones chain. Nothing called Botak Jones was trading against him any more.

Big Bern's still didn't take off. His own summary: "[For] five or six years, a huge number of people didn't even know that Big Bern's was me, Botak Jones."

In 2017 he had a heart attack. He's used a mobility scooter since. That same year the old Botak Jones business registration ceased. The pandemic closed Big Bern's at Timbre+ and Gluttons Bay.

Then checks showed the old name was free.

His words: "There was no live business that owned the [Botak Jones] name and trademark."

He reopened as Botak Jones on 14 June 2021, aged 69, in a coffee shop canteen at Depot Lane. Dine-in was illegal that week. Takeaway only.

Just after noon the queue was out of the coffee shop. Staff announced a 90-minute wait and half the line left. Sold out by 3pm. He cancelled dinner service for four days so the kitchen could catch up.

Two weeks in: "How the hell did we touch people so deeply that we still have a queue during a pandemic? I'm astounded."

He wasn't at the grill. He hasn't cooked in years.

His wife Faudziah runs operations. He does the recipes, the training and a lot of the Facebook posts.

Here's what stays with me:

Eight years. Two names. Same man, same food.

He changed other things too. BJ's was a move upmarket — a new address, a finer room, the same food. That was a different business, and it failed too.

The queue came back when the name did.

He'd been treating the name as the sentimental part and the kitchen as the asset.

It was the other way round.

Today there are five outlets. The newest opened in 2026.

What are you writing off as sentiment that's actually the only thing your customers are buying?