New 'urban' cafe concept launches in Dubai Marina

The dress code was 'geek chic', the space was minimalist and the girl on the door checked your name off the list on an iPad - the launch party of Make business hub lived up to everything it promised to be - a gathering of the coolest young entrepreneurs in town in a forward-thinking space.

CLICK HERE TO SEE PHOTOS FROM THE LAUNCH PARTY

The cafe, which is open from 8am-10pm every day of the week, has been operating for a few weeks now, but held its official opening party on February 13, 2012, where founder Leith Matthews was on hand to explain a bit more about the concept:

"I originally came to Dubai working as a bar manager for Park Hyatt but noticed a distinct lack of independent, urban spaces for people like me. I thought it was a niche opportunity.

“In London and New York there’s definitely a tipping movement for these kind of places so I did lots of research around mobile work hubs, created a business plan and quit my job.

“Then armed with only a piece of paper in my hand I set about securing an investor, finding a space, and a design company. It’s not easy in Dubai to find a space if you’re an independent F&B operator. Most people just don’t want to know about you.

The café is a clean, white, lofty  space, with ‘meeting pods’ (spacious booths that you can hire), and contemporary work desks of varying sizes. The ethos is that it will encourage creativity, inspire connections, and 'make' things happen.

The kitchen serves breakfast, lunch and dinner and menus feature tasty dishes like: sage butter scrambled eggs; organic salmon, cream cheese and asparagus flatbreads (the bread being homemade); wagyu beef steak pie.

“I’m so excited that we’ve achieved it. There’s a strong movement right now and we’re part of it. It’s exciting,” said Matthews.

Stephen Nicholson, designer and project manager at Hudon Design & Interiors – the company who took the hub from concept to delivery – enjoyed working on the project.

“The initial concept was quite vague so we spent a lot of time with the client trying to find out what he really wanted. He had a strong idea, but couldn’t describe it. We came up with concept after concept until we hit the mark.

“All the furniture is bespoke and designed to fit the space. It was a great project to work on.”