During the holy month of Ramadan, Mohammad Reza, 34, sets up his roadside stall in the Indonesian city of Medan every day at about 3pm. He heats up precooked portions of macaroni schotel using a gas-powered oven set on a grassy bank next to a busy roundabout to sell to hungry Indonesians who have been fasting from sunrise to sunset.
Reza, who runs a chicken restaurant during the rest of the year, enjoys selling takjil as it is simple. He only works from three to six o’clock in the evening and can make around an 80 percent profit.
Takjil are small nibbles or light dishes eaten in Indonesia for iftar — the meal at sunset when Muslims break fast. Takjil means “to speed up” in Arabic and has in turn been adopted into Bahasa Indonesia to mean “to speed up breaking fast”.
Reza’s regular customers at his restaurant also double as takjil buyers and they gave him the idea of bite-sized macaroni schotel as a takjil dish, which Reza makes from pasta, chicken mince, sausage, and marinara sauce.
Covid – 19 Effect
While Indonesia’s restaurateurs have traditionally seen takjil as a lucrative way to make money before the Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted business.
During Covid, bulk of his sales came online via food delivery apps Grab and GoFood. Even with the help of business online, Reza still only made approximately half the amount that he can make with a roadside stall — about $329 during the month.
Last year, he made about $658 by selling takjil by the side of the road in one of the largest residential complexes in Medan, something that he is repeating this year.
Schoolgirl Naila’s family has been selling takjil snacks since her father, now in his 40s, was in school. Now Naila, 18, and her cousin Dava, 16, are in charge of the family snack stall. “The chocolate-covered bananas are the most popular snack we sell, probably because they are so sweet and people like sweet things when they have been fasting all day,” Naila said. The takjil stall can make about $130 daily, making it more lucrative than the family chicken restaurant, which typically pulls in about $92. The family sells roughly 50 different kinds of snacks, including fried spring rolls, mini doughnuts, jellies, pancakes, and cream puffs. They are not sure how many portions they sell, only that the number is in “the hundreds”.