A home-grown Pakistani brand, Moti Roti, regularly caters to local events such as the Ripe Food Market and the Fridge Concert series, among others. We investigate what the team does to be fully prepared

Moti Roti was founded in the UAE two years ago by Tahir Shah, and started off its journey in events catering, by participating in community fairs and markets. At the time, Shah says the idea of home-style rotis as wraps was new and untested, and “events were the perfect platform for us to get feedback”.

The brand began by catering at Emaar community fairs, and eventually established a reputation for itself, and soon began appearing at farmers’ markets and events for Dubai’s art and music community. Now, the ubiquitous rotis can be found every weekend at Ripe’s Food Market in Safa Park, Dubai.

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Preparation Time
Shah says the team has learned over time what works for various events and what doesn’t, with a learning curve they had to face when starting out. He explains: “This has been a steady iteration of learning for us. In the early days I had a rudimentary checklist on my phone, and still we would run around because we would have forgotten something so innocuous such as matches.”

Now, however, the team has stepped up its game and has incorporated extra planning in their preparations.

Shah says: “Now we start planning the staffing a few days in advance, and start the ordering with the kitchen two days prior. All the staff members have Android tablets and we use Google Docs to share a checklist, which the team leader goes through and ticks.”

An event like Ripe’s market costs Shah AED 900 just for the setup, not including the cost of food involved on the day.

At the first market the team attended, Shah had just had a truck-style kiosk made. “Being made partly from reclaimed wood made it extremely heavy to carry, and I had to hire a pickup to transport it.

Since this was too impractical to move around, we needed a lighter stand; we took a spare steel kitchen bench on wheels, went to Al Quoz and improvised a fake wood casing, and tacked on a wheel from a wheel barrow to make it look like a hand cart.”

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