Sabika Qureshi had been teaching at various schools and colleges in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad for around six years before her son was born in 2019, making it difficult for her to manage employment outside the home while also looking after her family.
After more than a year of commuting to work while leaving her infant son with her mother who lived at the other end of town, Qureshi realized that this was not working out. The 34-year-old economics graduate and now a mother of two teamed up with her mother Shabnam Qureshi and grandmother Shireen Gul to launch the Three Cooks food delivery service in 2020, as COVID-19 lockdowns ravaged the restaurant industry globally. The idea not only worked for Sabika, helping her to start her own business, but also financially empowered her mother and became a means to preserve the legacy of her grandmother’s cooking.
“I came up with this idea with my mom and my Nani [grandmother], that let’s move to a house together, and let’s live together, and maybe we can just do something,” Sabika told Arab News at the cooking facility for Three Cooks.