SINGAPORE – Local actor Adam Chen has stepped back from the local food and beverage (F&B) industry and may look for a place to retire in his Japanese wife’s home town.

This was revealed by the 49-year-old in an interview with Chinese-language daily Lianhe Zaobao on Jan 7 on the set of upcoming local crime drama No Other Way, in which he plays a police investigator. The show, scheduled to air on Channel 8 in July, will also star Zhang Zetong, Nick Teo and Hong Ling.

Chen left Mediacorp in 2013 and ventured into the F&B industry, where he was involved in concepts like a bar, cafe, yakitori and donburi restaurants.

He has not been active in the entertainment industry in recent years, with his last major role in English-language TV drama Tanglin (2015 to 2018), playing a stay-at-home dad.

Chen quit the local food industry in 2024, explaining the idea took root after he read a news report that Singaporeans can soon use the Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link to travel to Johor Bahru by the end of 2026.

He said: “I believe it will mirror the situations in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, where it will get only tougher (for F&B industry). I decided to let go (of my business) since this is a factor which I have no control of.”

Chen is now helping out at his wife’s marketing consulting firm – a small company with about four or five employees. He is mainly responsible for operations and human resources management, while his wife oversees business development.

The couple, who have been married for three years, dated for a decade before tying the knot during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The pandemic brought great instability, and my restaurant business was also facing some risks then,” he said of his decision to get hitched. “I felt I needed something more grounded.”

At the time, his then-girlfriend was holding an Employment Pass, so he asked her to marry him to provide her with some legal guarantee.