Today we’d like to introduce you to Maham Qureshi.
Hi Maham, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My name is Maham R. Qureshi and I am the co-founder for SHAK•KAR along with my husband Ali Kureshi. I am from Pakistan and moved to the US in 2017 after meeting him. My passion for baking started with the dire need to satisfy my massive sweet tooth. Starting off with box cake mix I eventually got more and more involved in learning the science of baking. The infatuation continued as I made my way through culinary school and then into the industry.
However, how I fell in love with bread and especially croissants was a bit of a coincidence. I was on my internship making my way through different departments at Tiny’s Milk & Cookies. The fourth week I was there I got pushed into their Viennoiserie team as they had just lost a team member and needed help. Since that very day, I fell in love with laminated dough and never looked back. Eventually, I switched jobs and moved to Magnol where my obsession for croissants only grew under Chef Mattieu Cabon. Finally, I quit my job and my husband and I started our own business.
SHAK•KAR was in the works for a year by then as I spent all my extra hours formulating the croissant dough formula. After endless trials and errors, we finally found the direction we wanted to go with and launched SHAK•KAR in August 2021.
What started off as just me solely making croissants from home is now growing rapidly every day. We currently are hosting two permanent pop-ups at Canary Cafe & Canary Montrose as well as providing wholesale croissants and pastries to different cafes in Houston.
SHAK•KAR holds a very special place in my heart as it continues to be an expression of who I am. The name itself means “Sugar” in Urdu- my native language. We are a female-owned business that believes in equal opportunities across the board. We value differences and hope to continue supporting a healthy and fair work culture. Coming from the industry myself I know how hard it can be but we believe every little effort matters.
We hope that as we grow we can continue we keep strong to our core values.
The best thing about SHAK•KAR is that we do not believe imagination has any boundaries and we aspire to showcase that in our work.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I am a firm believer in the statement that nothing comes easy in life. So far our journey has been fairly smooth but every day Ali & I continue to figure out all the challenges that come with growing a business. However, I am glad we make a good team. We are a business that heavily relies on the creative side as we are always curating new formulas and products. As much as I love coming up with things like our Biscoff Croissant Cube and Croissant Cereal it can sometimes be challenging and mentally taxing especially when you are also trying to run a business side by side. That’s where Ali comes in and ensures everything runs smoothly. I am pretty sure all small businesses can relate as we are all struggling to do production, handle the business aspect of everything, manage social media platforms and so much more at the same time. But at the same time, it’s very exciting and such a learning curve. It does feel like we are working a lot more but at the end of the day the product we make makes us happy and that’s all that matters.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
SHAK•KAR is a small business that specializes in croissants and everything laminated doughs. That is why we call ourselves a croissanterie. My obsession with croissants started in 2019 and has continued to grow ever since. We love breaking barriers and making new and interesting pastries that no one has done before, especially in Houston. The Biscoff Croissant Cube and Croissant Cereal have been one of our best sellers since we started in 2021 and are always the fastest to sell out.
We do not have a fixed menu as we are always changing and curating seasonal flavors and holiday croissant boxes. In order to keep up with our menu, I would highly suggest following us on Instagram.
We are currently hosting Pop-up stores at Canary Cafe & Canary Montrose where we have our croissants available all week with our specials available on the weekends. If you would like to place custom orders our customers can always reach out to us via email or Instagram.
SHAK•KAR respects all dietary restrictions and our products are Halal ensuring we are all-inclusive. We are always happy to customize products to different dietary needs whenever possible.
What are your plans for the future?
Currently, we are accumulating to our pop-up stores but as soon as we are situated we hope to continue doing farmers’ markets throughout the city and also go back to taking more online orders. We are also working on exciting packaging and the concept of Croissant Boxes catered to different holidays and events. SHAK•KAR has a lot of growth and plans that we want to execute but we are taking one step at a time to ensure we maintain the quality of our products.
Contact Info:
- Email: shakkarcroissanterie@gmail.com
- Website: https://shakkar.co/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shakkarhtx/
Image Credits
Catherine Li (@hellocatty)