When you think of what to have for breakfast, the typical meals that come to mind would probably include roti canai, nasi lemak, or some sort of fried noodles.
But for Dyitesh Raaj, his love for breakfast burgers and breakfast food prompted him to make his very own English muffins and sausages from scratch and offer it to the masses at his breakfast eatery called Beaming.
He couldn’t stay away from F&B
According to the 29-year-old, he had been working in the F&B industry for 13 years. He started by working as a waiter for Old Town White Coffee when he was still in high school.
As a germophobe, Dyitesh shared that he found a surprising satisfaction in cleaning the restaurant, and the gritty, greasy parts of the job actually helped him to get over that.
Although the work was not easy, he developed an instinct for understanding what customers wanted from a service perspective.
“Not just ‘am I getting their order right?’ but also in a reserved social sphere, ‘would they like a chat?’ or ‘do they actually want recommendations?’,” explained Dyitesh.
Since then, every time he found the time to hold a job, he would end up in the service line. He would go on to play various roles throughout the specialty coffee industry from marketing to managing, and everything in between.
When he first started Beaming, he was still pulling shifts at a cafe and working around 40 hours a week while doing the prep work, shopping, managing the brand, and executing orders for Beaming.
“I could never have done Beaming full time from the get-go. I would not have survived.”
Dyitesh said that he simply saw this as a fun thing to do at first.
“I have no experience in running something on my own in this capacity. When I started this, I didn’t put any pressure on it,” he added.
After running it from home and doing a couple of pop-ups, he eventually decided to take the jump to do it full-time at the end of 2022.
A bright idea
“I finally settled into the mindset of having to work for myself and in a way ‘forge’ every ringgit I earn,” said Dyitesh.
When the COVID-19 pandemic happened, Dyitesh witnessed how badly hit the industry and its service industry workers were.
“While it affected me personally, it was not as hard as my colleagues with families and bigger responsibilities than me. That gave me the perspective and drive to actively do better for myself.”
On why he chose to start a business selling Western breakfast meals, Dyitesh said, “I could have started any business. I cycled through a few ideas like opening a doughnut stall, a coffee stand, or a chapati stall. I considered things within my means.”
However, when he came up with the idea for Beaming, he said that everything flowed and not many things made him feel as if the whole idea was too hard.
So, he decided on making English muffins and sausages from scratch, and came up with the name, logo, and rough menu that same evening.
On the choice of logo and the name, Dyitesh said that he envisioned something bright and wanted to invoke a sense of calm and happiness.
“The logo came to me first and then eventually the name. I sat with it for a few days before I got comfortable. The first thing I did then was to tell my mum,” he shared.
Despite its recent success, Dyitesh said that he had never felt confident about Beaming’s reception.
“I never felt that Beaming would take off. I still don’t.”
“My market research was simply McDonald’s and all I needed to do was make the product available and make the price increase justifiable for a customer to consider me instead of a well-established fast food brand,” he explained.
The sizzling start
Dyitesh shared that it didn’t cost him too much money to start as he simply needed to buy raw ingredients such as chicken, bread flour, butter, milk, and so on.
“Deciding to make everything from scratch meant that I didn’t have to invest in large amounts of anything to start this business. Just my time and energy.”
He eventually purchased larger bowls to knead more dough and saved up some of his salary as a barista to purchase a flat-top griddle.
In terms of coming up with the recipe for his English muffins and sausages, Dyitesh shared that he had no prior knowledge or experience.
“So I watched as many YouTube videos and consumed as much content as I could, specifically on making English muffins and chicken sausage patties from scratch.”
He claimed that the chicken sausages were the hardest thing to get down and that feedback from friends in the industry helped him make improvements to the product.
“I knew I had to make the sausage flavour strong, salty, and a little spicy. So any recipe I adapted, I would basically increase the seasonings by times two because we Malaysians prefer strong flavours of spice and a pronounced savoury deliciousness,” he said.
Initially, it was his one-man show, but his mother has now pitched in to help with preparing the sausages, which is still done at home.
Besides his mother, Dyitesh also attributes Beaming’s success to his friends who help him out as part-time service staff during the weekends.
“The growth of Beaming wouldn’t be possible without my friends who showed so much support from the early stages till now,” he said.
Currently, the baking of the English muffins is done at the current Beaming kitchen located at The Basikal. On an average week, Beaming sells around 300 muffins.
Let him cook
Despite its recent success and popularity, Dyitesh admitted that Beaming has yet to find some consistency in how much sales he pulls in, considering how little time he has had since opening at The Basikal.
In the month of March, he shared that Beaming brought in sales of around RM16,000. However, most of it went back into ingredients/inventory, rent, and new equipment.
“I still haven’t found my stride, I feel that Beaming has so much more room to grow and to generate income,” added Dyitesh.
Whilst reflecting on the challenges he has faced since starting Beaming, Dyitesh candidly admitted, “Just believing that all this time, effort, and sacrifice would be worth it has been the hardest part of this.”
“A lot of times it can be hard to see the value of running a food business on your own. Every day is a unique challenge, and facing most of it alone has been extremely difficult.”
But, Dyitesh said that this has also been the best way to help him become a better business owner, cook, and to find a balance between building a career and living a healthy and happy life.
On Beaming’s future, his short-term goal is just to make it somewhat sustainable for himself and his family.
“I do not plan to expand and I simply want to gain the trust of my customers that the product will always be good and that the best ingredients and methods were in place to give them this product.”
Featured Image Credit: Beaming