It was not long before James and Gina decided to set up their first stall in Geylang Bahru in 1987. James, who was in real estate, would prepare the vadai ingredients and batter while Gina did the deep-frying. Known affectionately by their customers as “Geylang Bahru Vadai”, their signature snack eventually gained fame and a loyal following by word of mouth, and drew snaking queues each afternoon when the couple opened shop after the main tenant’s breakfast shift. “The business was originally called Born Again Vadai,” explains Daniel James, the youngest of Gina’s three sons. “This was later changed to BA Vadai for short. But neither of these names worked for us as a brand, nor did our customers fancy them. It was actually a customer who shared his thoughts with us about having it named after my mum, and it sat well with my dad, given his affection for her. I guess that played a part [in the renaming process]: men, and their love for their wives.” When Daniel is not helping his mother at the stall, the 28-year-old works as a creative director at a boutique web design company that he co-founded.
Daniel, then in primary school, would rush home straight after class to help out at the stall, often working late into the night as he accompanied his father to deliver food. Together with his family members, he would sleep on fold-out beach chairs at the Simpang Bedok food court and wake early in the morning to head out with his father on more delivery errands before returning to school. “My family would always bring a change of clothes with us [in case we didn’t go home for the night]. It was almost as if we were living at Simpang Bedok. Yes, we were struggling then, but they are still very fond memories to me,” he says. After seven years of operating at Simpang Bedok, the business moved to East Coast Road, followed by Suntec City mall, and back to East Coast Road at the now-defunct coffee house, Carlton Restaurant. It was also during this period that James, 52, died suddenly from a heart attack in 2009. Both mother and son are convinced that James had somehow anticipated his own demise. Heartbroken over a property deal gone wrong — one that robbed him of a hefty commission that he and his family had been looking forward to — James seemed to have been making preparations to leave the food business entirely to his wife and children or, in Daniel’s words, given up. “He had given his word to our sons to pay for their education, their weddings… We were supposed to move overseas [with the money earned from the commission] and set up shop there. You could say that 95% of the preparations [for the move] were already made,” recounts Gina ruefully.
With Gina’s Vadai finally up and running again at its new location, Gina and her elder sister continue to tend to the stall on a daily basis. Daniel has taken a backseat in the business to focus on the marketing and operational aspects instead.