Azka’s Dough Depot: Combining Food and Community

by Iyath Adam

For our interview article this time, we had a chat with Mariyam Azka Hassan, co-owner and baker of Dough Depot café in Male’ City.

We discuss all about her business journey, her dreams for creating a neighbourhood community with her food, and her advice for aspiring food entrepreneurs.

Read on! 

Lonumedhu: First off, how did you first get interested in baking?

Azka: I first got interested in baking while experimenting and trying different recipes with my cousins. We actually started a page taking orders and selling desserts like cakes, cookies, cupcakes, which we worked on for a few months. Then, I got the opportunity to start Dough Depot with my dad, and here we are! 

Lonumedhu: When did you open Dough Depot? What has the journey been like?

Azka: We opened Dough Depot about two years back, in late 2024. I’d say the journey has been really tough, but it’s also been very nice to see the progress that we’ve made over the past few months.

When we started out, it was mainly just me and my dad; we couldn’t really afford to bring in a lot of staff. So, we had one chef who made all the savoury pastries and one server to cater to customers. I made all the desserts, the custom orders and the drinks while also serving at the counter. My dad did the deliveries and supply runs, and he’d also pitch in to do the baking sometimes. It was very tough in the beginning but now, alhamdulillah, we’ve been growing and we’ve managed to get more staff, which has made the whole process easier.

It’s also been really nice to build a regular customer base. We’ve been able to bring a real community neighbourhood feel to the café, which is something that I’ve wanted for Dough Depot from the very beginning. Our logo is also reflective of that; the shape is obviously a coffee mug, the part above the ‘Dough Depot’ text is a cake, below it is a coffee bean, a loaf of bread and a croissant, all enclosed in a pair of cupped hands. Cupped hands are a symbol of giving or sharing, which I added to the logo to signify how we’d work to try and build a community bond. So, to have been able to sort of build that has really been the best part of it. We have the grandfathers who come in and talk about different topics like fishing, barbecuing, politics etc., then you have the little kids, some who come in almost every day. Sometimes, they’ll chat with us, even when they see us on the road or outside the café, so it’s become really personal and I love that.

I also really love to feed people, so to see customers enjoying the food I make, getting their reviews and seeing them come back for more, that’s been really gratifying too.

Lonumedhu: What products do you offer at Dough Depot?

Azka: We offer drinks, savoury pastries and small desserts, and we also take orders for whole cakes and custom decorated cakes.

One of our best-selling desserts is our Matilda chocolate cake, which we take whole cake orders for and is sometimes available as slices in the café too. Our savouries include local staples like fish buns, chicken buns, paninis and rolls, and also some unique products like our tom yum melt bun and curry barbecue chicken katsu sando. For drinks, we have everyone’s favourites like cardamom tea and Lavazza coffee. We also have some fun items like our banoffee milkshake, ‘Oceanilla,’ which is an ocean-inspired iced coffee, and our CapyCookie milkshake that comes with a little edible capybara! 

My dad and I also like to experiment a lot, so we’ve introduced a variety of new menu items since we opened; on our display case, we have a full row of desserts that always rotate, based on our experiments. And I think a lot of people appreciate that we change stuff up. We also take drink suggestions, so if a customer comes in and wants to try a new flavour combination, we’re very open to making it.

Lonumedhu: What’s the most challenging part about running your own business?

Azka: I think it’s just the amount of time involved to get it off the ground and make it successful. You have to understand that at the beginning, you might struggle and not even make a lot of money. So, letting that process happen and being patient with it while putting in the effort, that was a little bit more challenging than I had anticipated.

I also don’t think I realised the time and actual physical labour of running a café business. For example, if the chef is out sick, my shift will start around 1:00 or 2:00 AM at night. On those days, I’d make both the savouries and the desserts throughout the night, and I’d be serving at the counter from 5:30 AM onwards, which is when we open. And then, there might be custom orders for the evening which I’d again make. So, the time management bit was very different from what I had imagined.

Lonumedhu: Do you have a favourite thing to make or bake?

Azka: I like to make food that has simple, unique flavours, but which also has really long, difficult, tedious recipe processes, haha. I learnt to bake by experimenting different things at home and really immersing myself in the process – not by following a single recipe – so I really enjoy that. If I do something exactly step by step from the get-go, then there’s no magic in that or discovering what the failures can create. And the happiness you feel when the end product turns out right, that’s a difficult feeling to beat.

Lonumedhu: What's your advice to aspiring chefs/bakers who want to venture out and start their own businesses?

Azka: Don’t ever be afraid to be innovative and creative. And don’t be afraid to fail. I think sometimes, when you’re being innovative, you wonder if what you’re doing is too much or too weird – but you'll never know whether it’ll work or what to improve until you try.

Another thing is to stay organised. Plan ahead but also let loose a bit so that you can enjoy the process. Otherwise, the time and the workload will eat you up.

Lonumedhu: What's next for Dough Depot?

Azka: I think the next part is to combine desserts with our community efforts and expand on it.

My initial idea for Dough Depot was for it to be a café but also a space where we could host small community events. I wanted to bring back the familiar feeling of neighbourhood cafés, maybe have story reading sessions for kids during weekends or evenings where grandparents and kids can do activities together. So, as the business grows and we gradually increase our staff, I’ll have more time to execute that, which I’m excited for.

I also want to make Dough Depot a space where people can make memories and remember about later. You know how sometimes, the smell or taste of certain foods transports you back to certain dishes from your childhood, maybe something that your grandmother made? I want to have the opportunity to recreate that same feeling for customers with my food and create something personal and meaningful for the neighbourhood.

Lonumedhu: Is there anything else that you’d like to add before we end the interview?

Azka: I really want to thank my dad for giving me the opportunity to do this. I feel really privileged to be able to run my own business and he’s the person who made all this possible for me; he’s the reason that Dough Depot and I have been able to progress this far. I feel really lucky to have been able to start something like this with Bappa and to continue doing this with him. 

Lonumedhu: Thank you so much for your time, Azka. We wish you all the best!