The restaurant, which was one of more than 20 businesses at the mall, sold local food and beverages like mee goreng, or stir-fried noodles, and teh tarik, or milk tea.
I met the owner of the mall, a local businessman named Fadzil Hashim, at the restaurant.
Fadzil owns several enterprises in Malaysia, including an Islamic international school. He told me the mall opened in March 2020 to much fanfare.
"At that time only nine shops were open, but we had more than 6,000 people come visit," Fadzil said, adding that he hired almost 500 staff.
"I said, okay, we are ready."
But four days after the mall's opening, Malaysia went into a months-long pandemic lockdown. The mall has struggled to get back on track ever since.
"We took over a dead mall that was built seven years ago and was vacant ever since. We tried to revive it," Fadzil said, adding that he and his partners have spent over 40 million Malaysian ringgit, or around $9 million, developing the mall without any loans.
Two years after the mall first opened, Fadzil said it still isn't breaking even. He said the mall had a revenue of 17 million ringgit and 25 million ringgit in its first two years of operation, but because of the mall's size, "it still isn't enough."