Circuit Roastery & Bar

📍 12 Keong Saik Road, Tanjong Pagar, Singapore 089119

🗓 Opened: July 2025

🌐 Website | 🗺 Google Maps

Singapore's Keong Saik Gets a New All-Day Coffee and Cocktail Destination

July 2025 brought one of the most anticipated openings to Tanjong Pagar's Keong Saik Road: Circuit Roastery & Bar, a dual-concept space that operates as a specialty coffee roastery by day and a craft cocktail bar by night. The 2,400-square-foot venue is the first standalone project from founders Mei Lin and Daniel Ong, both veterans of Singapore's competitive café circuit who spent three years sourcing beans from micro-farms across Java, Chiang Rai, and Yunnan before pulling the trigger on this address. It is the kind of opening that Keong Saik regulars have been quietly waiting for — a space that takes both coffee and spirits seriously without leaning too hard into either identity.

What Makes Circuit Different From Every Other Specialty Café

The roastery component is not decorative. A Loring S15 Falcon roaster sits visible behind glass at the back of the room, roasting small batches of single-origin beans three mornings a week, and the smell alone is reason enough to arrive before noon. Head barista Priya Nair, formerly of Proud Mary in Melbourne, runs a tight espresso program built around a rotating seasonal single-origin alongside two house blends — one designed for milk drinks, one for black. The bar program after 5pm is led by cocktail consultant Ryo Tanaka, who has drawn on his years at Tokyo's Bar High Five to build a short menu of twelve drinks that use coffee and tea as primary flavour architecture rather than as novelty garnishes.

• Signature coffee: Cold-pressed Yunnan natural process filter, served at precisely 8°C ($9)
• Must-try cocktail: Roasted barley and aged rum old fashioned ($24)
• Food highlight: Smoked duck and gruyère croissant with house chilli jam ($16)
• Price range: $8–28 per person depending on time of day

The Space and the Crowd It's Built For

Interior designer Suki Chow has kept the fit-out deliberately raw — exposed concrete, reclaimed timber shelving, and pendant lighting sourced from a Penang ironmonger give the room a worn-in quality that most new openings spend years trying to manufacture. Seating covers 45 inside and a further 12 on a narrow al fresco strip facing the street. The layout separates a communal brew bar from a more intimate cocktail counter at the far end, which means the morning laptop crowd and the evening drinkers rarely feel like they are sharing the same venue. On opening weekend, Circuit reportedly turned away more than 60 walk-ins on Saturday evening alone, which suggests the neighbourhood was ready for exactly this.

Why the Timing Matters for Keong Saik

Keong Saik Road has seen a steady stream of restaurant openings over the past two years, but dedicated coffee destinations with serious evening programming have remained rare on this particular stretch. Circuit fills that gap without trying to be a restaurant, a co-working space, or a lifestyle brand — a discipline that is harder to maintain than it sounds. Mei Lin has confirmed that a small retail section selling Circuit's own roasted beans by the 200g bag will launch in August, with subscriptions to follow. For regulars of the street, that adds a practical reason to return beyond the cup itself.

The Verdict

Circuit Roastery & Bar is one of the most coherent new openings Singapore has produced this year, and coherence is the word — every decision, from the roaster on display to the twelve-cocktail menu, reflects a team that knew exactly what it wanted to build before it opened the doors. Go on a weekday morning for the filter program and Priya Nair's current Yunnan single-origin, then return on a Thursday evening to work through Ryo Tanaka's cocktail list before the weekend crowds arrive. If you leave without buying a bag of beans to take home, you have not been paying attention.