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When we opened the first Theobroma outlet, I knew how to bake cakes but not much else. I was totally unprepared for the retail market and the demands and challenges that lay ahead. I went from having the responsibility of making one product at a time in a comfortable five-star environment to being responsible for everything.
The early days of a business are tough. Nothing is predictable and most days it felt like things just weren’t going to work out. I knew opening a bakery was going to be difficult, but until we did it, I couldn’t have imagined how hard it was going to be.
To say we didn’t anticipate the demand for our products would be a gross understatement. Customers would walk in to find the counters almost bare. We were making as much as we could and we were selling everything we made. Our brownies, truffle cake, cheesecake and Tiered Temptation (a chocolate-orange mousse cake) just flew off the shelves. We were a small team, but with only one trained chef. Whenever we received a big order for a few hundred hampers, Mum’s friends Preeti, Neelam and Chandri would come over to help us pack, to ensure it was delivered on time.
We had chosen the Cusrow Baug location for Theobroma because of its proximity to my grandmother’s old flat in Shirin Manzil, which became the bakery kitchen. The infrastructure I had at the time was basic since all our funds had gone into the initial costs of starting the business ourselves. The corridor of her flat became my chocolate room, the dining room was the hot kitchen, cakes were made in the living room and we used her bedroom for storage. Her bed, mattress removed, became our shelving unit, and her dining table was all the workspace we had.
It was impossible for us to increase production because we had only two domestic refrigerators to store our products. In those early days, we had no inventory, order sheets or numbers. We just made what we could and whatever we made just sold quickly. We prepared things in batches — 100 rolls, 200 or 300 puffs, as many brownies as we could bake.
Like my temperamental oven, I would routinely break down sobbing in my mother’s arms overwhelmed by the water, gas, air-conditioning, plumbing and landlady problems we had to contend with daily. It was a humble beginning and a deep shock to my system, having only worked in state-of-the-art commercial kitchens up until then. Many of our staff were untrained and we made many mistakes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was mentally draining and physically exhausting as Mum, Dad and I were working almost 18-hour days and yet there was always more to do. We didn’t appreciate the initial success or response because we couldn’t pause long enough to do so. Mum would come home after being on her feet all day; she would wince with pain as she removed her shoes or have tears in her eyes as she sat on her bed. Though we worked in close proximity, we sometimes did not speak a word to each other the whole day. We were so completely engrossed in our own roles and duties; we were living and breathing Theobroma and nothing else. It was around this time that an incident occurred that reinforced my faith in the kindness of strangers.
I am incredibly proud to be a Parsi. One of the first things you see on our website is that we are a "Parsi family owned and managed Café.” I hope it tells the world that we are honest, reputable and reliable.
I had naively assumed that all our Parsi neighbors would be welcoming and encouraging of our new venture, but that illusion was quickly shattered. A few neighbors were hostile, unwelcoming and did everything in their power to shut our business. There were frequent complaints to the fire service against us with false allegations of unlicensed gas cylinders.
A handful of residents even let the air out of our car tyres and blocked our cars in. I wanted to believe that they were creatures of habit and averse to change rather than simply mean-spirited and envious.
Then, within months of our opening, our neighbors complained to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) about the tin roof that had been built over our outlet kitchen. In the middle of the monsoon, the authorities came and broke it down. Unfortunately, there was a heavy downpour of rain immediately thereafter. As our small outlet kitchen flooded, we watched as our neighbors cheered on. The bakery was crazy busy and there was barely space to move. We just stood there, as there was nothing we could do. The rain had also suspended the train service that day and some of our staff could not make it to work. We had stopped all kitchen orders on that day.
Standing amidst the chaos, we paused for a while and then continued to serve the guests who were waiting. One guest walked in, saw the mess and asked what had happened. Offering to help, she rolled up her sleeves and set to work. She picked up dirty plates, wiped the tables and served coffee. When the rush died down, she made herself a coffee, and paid for it before leaving!