After noticing a gap in the market for shisha on Dominion Rd, Mohammed Alawad closed the book on his career as a boxing coach to bring a taste of his culture and whenua to the
famed culinary stretch.

He says the joint became so popular with locals that he enlisted the talents of his mum, Suzan Idris, to create Sudanese and Ethiopian food after just a year in business. This week, Yala will host Work from Yala where he says people working from home can come in to eat, network, and smoke shisha.

What is Yala Lounge?

It was meant to be a cosy place where people and friends can come to smoke shisha because there wasn’t any good shisha around Dominion Rd.

Originally it was just shisha, then it turned into Yala Restaurant and it’s becoming more of a family place.

When did you start the business?

It was June 11, 2021, then we had that August lockdown that went for four months.

It wasn’t as bad as the rest [of the lockdowns] because that was just the beginning. I didn’t have many employees.

After a year, a lot of people were requesting African food. My mother has always been a good cook, so I thought, ‘Why not turn it into an Ethiopian and Sudanese restaurant?’

It took me a few months to change it to a restaurant where my mum is the head chef now, and it’s turned out to be more than just family and friends.

Everyone loves it. There’s a different variety of food in the area and hopefully it will slowly grow.

What does Yala mean?

It literally means let’s go, hurry, move in Arabic. So if someone wants to go or if someone is in the way, they would say, ‘Yala, move’.

It was easy for people to remember because so many people know that word, because they’ve heard people say, ‘Yala habibi’ (Let’s go, my friend).

How did you get into business?

I was meant to open a dojo [martial arts gym] in 2019, because my background is in coaching boxing.

I ordered a whole container from overseas and the first lockdown in 2020 happened, and the container got stuck at the docks here in In New Zealand. So the container was sitting in the docks for weeks and I was paying rent for storage because I couldn’t move it.

It had everything inside: Rings, barbells, dumbells, tyres, ropes, you name it. And eventually, I sold the container.

Because I have a big family, I used to make shisha for them before Yala Lounge. I never used to smoke shisha but I made it and everyone used to love it.

I thought, let me just open a shisha place, so I went from health to smoking and everyone was surprised.

How do you make shisha?

In a nutshell, you have to have the right shisha cloud head, the right charcoal, the right amount of water and a clean hose for separate flavours.

Different flavours need a different hose. There are different weights of shisha heads – there’s a 10 gram, 15g and a 25g head.

Using foil usually heats up where the charcoal is but the cloud head heats up all around, so you can get all the flavours, not just where the charcoal is heated.

What is shisha and what is its cultural significance?

Shisha originally came from India. It was just a form of social gathering and it was mainly for men. Usually, it was just one flavour which was double apple.

What are your popular dishes?

From the Ethiopian side, there’s something called doro wat. It’s slow-cooked chicken. We roast it for eight hours – that’s very popular.

Then on the Sudanese side, there’s a dish called ful – it’s loved by everyone and anyone. Ful is traditional Sudanese food. The rest are also good.

Are you going to expand the business?

I looked into opening in Wellington, but it’s only been two years and in business two years is just the beginning.

This is when you start making profit, you’re getting there. We will see, time will tell.

How is the business going in terms of profitability?

It is doing okay, but it could be better.

It could be increased with alcohol. Because we don’t serve alcohol, most of our customers, female and male, can come and know they’re safe.

We’re running Work from Yala on Wednesday because so many people are working from home who might want to leave that environment and come to a place to eat and smoke shisha.

It’s networking as well. You get a lot of people there from different workspaces, so you can talk about what you do.

People can come in from 8am until 5pm, and there will be a breakfast menu, wi-fi and shisha. As far as I know, no one is doing this.

What advice do you have for others looking to start their own business?

I know people have heard this a lot, but just do it.

I have a slogan that says, if it was easy, anyone could do it. It’s not easy but just do it. The more ideas you have in your head and the more you plan things, you wouldn’t know where to start.

But if you just go with it, you fail and you continue.