Her eye for unique items and her marketing savvy soon won her fans and write-ups in international fashion journals.
She became known as a champion of local designers and their labels, such as Chia Wei Choong's Antebellum and Jonathan Seow's Woods & Woods.
Although she lost $160,000 in the first year, by the beginning of the third year, she had managed to repay the loans she got from family to keep the store going.
Just as things were picking up, she got pregnant with her first child. She decided to close the cafe.
In 2010, cult ready-to-wear French brand A.P.C. - impressed by how she had increased their sales - approached her to start a standalone store for them at Raffles Hotel.
That was followed by Thai label FlyNow, whose founder Somchai Songwatana has been known to turn down most business proposals.
"He didn't ask to see my financial records; he just looked at my face and asked to see my profile sideways. That was my interview," she says with a laugh. It helped of course that she showed him the FlyNow pieces she had saved so diligently to buy as a student.
Her FlyNow boutique is the first in the Asia-Pacific region outside Thailand.
Former fashion journalist Catherine Ong, now HLS' director of marketing, says: "When she got these two labels, it upped her cachet by leaps and bounds. Suddenly, all types of industry players were taking a new look at her."
Mr James Tan, former marketing head for Adidas and Levis, has known Ms Kositchotitana for nearly a decade.
"I loved working with her. She has the rare ability to understand the essence of a brand and is very goal- and result-oriented. She will push boundaries to deliver results exceeding your expectations."
Not surprisingly, many foreign designers wanted her to stock their labels.
"Before I take on a brand, I have several rounds of interviews to find out how resistant they are to ideas. I cannot work with someone I cannot shape," she says.
She famously declined to stock a collection by Christophe Lemaire - Hermes' new creative director. "They were inspired by Vietnamese fisherman pants and were priced at $500. Why would I force my customers to pay so much when they can buy it for 1/20th of the price here?"
She stocked the French designer's subsequent collections because they were unique.
She met Mr Hong, 34, her Korean partner for HLS, earlier this year when he approached her to stock his line of man bags.
By then, the mother of another daughter, now one year old, she shared her idea for a fast fashion label with him over a dinner of chilli crabs and discovered he wanted to do the same.
An extremely well-connected individual who has worked in South Korea's music, fashion and media industries, Mr Hong - who went to film school in California - was just the partner she was looking for.
Both pumped in a six-figure sum and, by July, they had a prototype collection to show buyers.
Ms Kositchotitana believes HLS is the culmination of all that she's been doing for the last seven years.
"I've done retail, wholesale, distribution, franchise and now I'm doing manufacturing.
"All my life, I've been developing other people's brands. But this time, I'm developing a brand which I co-own. It's mine."
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