Double Tap

Chris Barish and Julie Mulligan of Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer are the Happy Meal of the burger business: they complement each other and even complete each other’s sentences. The couple behind the popular chain talks to Daniel Goh about their aspirations for the brand.

- Daniel Goh

CHRIS BARISH, JULIE MULLIGAN AND I were ensconced in a corner table at Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer, which has its own little niche at The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands. Opened last September, it is the brand’s first Asian outpost. Justly proud, owner Barish looked around at the bustle of activity and proclaimed: “It’s been doing great,” when I asked how business was.

“What time is it?” he queried. “It’s 4 pm,” chimed in Mulligan, Barish’s wife and business partner. “Even at 4 pm on a weekday, there are people here,” Barish continued, without skipping a beat. “On the weekend, there’ll be a thousand people.” Mulligan nodded: “It’ll be crazy all day long.”

The couple speaks as one voice. They are clearly proud of the performance of Black Tap in Singapore. Barish explained: “We have well over 5,000 customers a week, up to 6,000. I have been in the food and beverage business since I was 17, and this has exceeded all our expectations.”

Barish, who built the Black Tap brand from a 15-seat burger joint in New York in 2015, to an empire with locations across the US and in Geneva, Dubai, and Singapore, attributes his success to “giving the world a slice of downtown New York”.