Pooja Bavishi
Founder & CEO of Malai
Reimagining What “American Flavor” Means
By Mira Bhayroo
Pooja Bavishi always knew she’d have a dessert business. She loved hospitality and the feeling of watching her parents welcome guests into their home with generosity; she equated that warmth with being Indian, and equated desserts with hospitality itself. “You will always make someone happy when you give them a dessert,” she says. Long before Malai existed, Pooja was the friend who made everyone’s birthday cake, hosted cookie swaps, and eventually ran a side business called Sweets by Pooja out of her home kitchen all while building a career she loved in fair housing and civil rights work.
Growing up, she worked hard to stay connected to her heritage. “I was hyper-aware of my identity, and I was always really proud of my Indian heritage, always really curious about it,” she says. She found access however she could: through her mother’s cooking, through trips to India, and through Bollywood movie nights with her non-Indian friends. Bringing people into her culture became second nature and is woven into the success of Malai.
Founded in 2015 after Pooja graduated from NYU’s Stern School of Business, Malai has grown from a home kitchen operation into four scoop shops across Brooklyn, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and Manhattan, alongside a nationwide wholesale and e-commerce business. Betting on Malai was an easy decision.
Decisions are just decisions, she says. “You made the decision that you thought was best at that moment. And nothing is forever; if it doesn’t work out, you do something else.” Her advice to anyone considering a leap: “Bet on yourself. You can’t wait for the perfect scenario to start anything. That doesn’t exist.”
Looking ahead, Pooja is eyeing new markets for Malai’s scoop shops. Her bigger vision extends past U.S. borders altogether: she wants Malai to become a worldwide brand, which means continuing to shift how mainstream palates think about flavor.
Her parents, who are entrepreneurs themselves, were an early influence. Pooja also has a mentor from Malai’s earliest days who still sits on Malai’s advisory board more than a decade later. What hasn’t changed in eleven years is where every flavor begins: her own KitchenAid, in her home kitchen, the same way she developed her very first recipes. She still conceptualizes every recipe herself, and inspiration tends to arrive unannounced: from a smell, a dish at a restaurant, a memory. “Malai is authentic to me,” she says. “The flavors are coming from my mind, my memories, my nostalgia.” That founder-driven authenticity, she believes, is exactly what customers connect with.
Pooja is emphatic that Malai isn’t a niche product, it’s an American one.
Our goal has been to argue that these flavors are as mainstream as everything else. It’s really about redefining what American flavor is and who gets to define it,” she says. “Malai is not meant to be the best Indian ice cream out there. It’s meant to be the best ice cream out there.
Looking ahead, Pooja is eyeing new markets for Malai’s scoop shops. Her bigger vision extends past U.S. borders altogether: she wants Malai to become a worldwide brand, which means continuing to shift how mainstream palates think about flavor.
At the center of it all is something simple. “Food is meant to be shared,” Pooja says. “It’s meant to bring happiness and joy, and I think that’s what Malai is doing.” Pooja Bavishi’s journey is proof that you can hold onto more than one dream, bet on yourself without waiting for certainty, and bring everyone along with you, one scoop at a time.
