We started at home
Dot Bakery & Cafe began as a modest Instagram account called Madelienabakery, from our home kitchen in Al-Ahsa in 2012. It had hardly any followers in its first year, and yet we held on to it, because we knew what we wanted to do.
2012
One Instagram account. One home kitchen in Al-Ahsa.
2017
Out of the house. The first official shop, in Hofuf.
Today
Three branches, an app, a cake account. Same passion.
From one kitchen to two, then to the first branch
The following grew slowly, then held, year after year, until it asked more than one woman still at university and one home kitchen could give. So a second kitchen went into the house, a small bakery in all but name. With it, and with a bigger team, the orders jumped.
The ambition kept growing until 2017, the year we left the house for good and opened our first shop in Hofuf. That is where Dot Bakery & Cafe was officially born.
What we learned from zero
Starting from zero in a home kitchen teaches you the craft by doing it, every part of it. We learned what good service does, and saw it work straight away. We learned what our customers love, and built the menu around it.
For the first five years it was only us, so every customer comment was read and taken in. The good ones were fuel for the ambition. The hard ones taught us something, about the product, the delivery or the service.
We are bigger now, and we still read every one. That habit came from the home kitchen, and it stayed.
Today
Three branches in Hofuf, Mubarraz and Khobar, open 6 am to midnight, and until 2 am on Thursday and Friday. One bakery bakes before dawn and reaches every branch before the doors open. Inside each one: cookies out of the oven every hour, breakfast made in front of you, specialty coffee, and occasion cakes to order through Dot Cake Art. And we still bake every day with the passion we started with.
Born in Al-Ahsa. Growing beyond it, staying true to who we are.
We bake for real. We serve with care. And we grow from our roots, not away from them.