Our Story

Back in 2013, when our family first started this journey, my parents-in-law originally wanted to open a restaurant in Campsie. For various reasons, those plans never came to life. But that didn’t stop them from wanting to share their ancestral dumpling recipe with everyone.

A friend introduced them to the markets, and from the very beginning, it was a boom. Honestly, nobody can resist that recipe.

Week after week, people kept coming back. Slowly, the community started growing. What began as a small market stall turned into something much more special.

Then COVID hit, and during that time my parents-in-law invited Rosalie and me to join them at the markets. We said yes... mostly just for fun.

That first market, we made around $200, but to us, it felt like we'd won the lottery.

We laughed the whole day. We were exhausted, freezing cold from the rain, completely out of our comfort zone... but we loved every second of it. Deep down, I think we both knew that once people tasted our family recipe, they were going to love it as much as we did.

At the time, I was spending most of my days behind a computer, working my regular full-time job. Suddenly, I found myself doing something completely different. Talking to people, sharing our culture, hearing other people’s stories, meeting families from all backgrounds, and watching complete strangers bite into our dumplings with those huge smiles.

I still remember the very first customer reaction we got. Watching someone pop one of our juicy dumplings into their mouth, laugh, smile, and immediately come back for more... Honestly, it still makes me emotional thinking about it.

It was a feeling I had never experienced before. It was like a sudden click inside me asking for more.

We didn’t start this because we wanted a business. We started it because we genuinely loved bringing people together over great food.

From there, I wanted to grow. I’ve always been someone who thinks big, so naturally I wanted to challenge ourselves in bigger and busier markets, places that were competitive, fast-paced, and hard to break into.

So we applied for Glebe Market, our first really big market. And it was a hit.

I still remember our very first sold-out day. Rosalie and I looked at each other in complete disbelief, trying to hold back some pretty big emotions behind the scenes. It felt surreal.

Because the truth is, our community has seen every part of this journey.

They’ve seen us on the good weeks and the difficult ones. They’ve seen us working through family stress, exhaustion, and long weekends. They’ve seen us sweating through summer days, freezing through winter mornings, and literally holding onto the stall so it wouldn’t blow away in those crazy Sydney gusts.

So when all that effort started paying off, it felt magical. But with growth came pressure.

Suddenly, we needed to produce more dumplings every single week just to keep up with demand. We knew that if we couldn’t maintain stock levels, we might lose our market spots, and honestly, that sounded devastating.

So we worked harder than ever.

Late nights preparing fillings. Early mornings folding dumplings. Scheduling. Organising suppliers. Picking up ingredients. Packing. Cleaning. Market prep.

And somehow, I was still working my 9-to-5 job during the week. I was exhausted, but without my family’s support, none of this would’ve been possible.

After that boom in Glebe, something changed in my mindset. I didn’t just want to be another food stall anymore.

I didn’t want people to simply buy our dumplings—I wanted them to remember the experience. I wanted Dumpling Cheers to become part of people’s weekends, something families looked forward to visiting.

As we kept talking with customers every weekend, more and more people started saying the same thing:

“I wish I could take these home for the week.”

People wanted easy lunches, quick dinners, comfort food with real flavour. That’s when the idea of frozen dumplings started becoming real in my mind.

At first, it felt almost too big. Bigger than us.

In 2025, supported by my family, I made one of the scariest decisions of my life. I stepped away from my full-time career to focus completely on Dumpling Cheers.

I wanted to take everything I had learned over the years and finally turn Dumpling Cheers from a fun market project into a real business.

I spoke with my parents-in-law, and they believed in the vision too. So we took the next step.

We launched our very first frozen dumpling range with one goal in mind: bringing our family recipe to homes all across Australia.

Once again, the community showed us so much love. And the demand kept growing across Sydney, and eventually our home kitchen simply became too small for what Dumpling Cheers was becoming.

When it came the time to choose where to build our next chapter, the decision actually felt easy.

Maroubra and the Eastern Suburbs already felt like a part of our story.

Our story began here.
Our struggles happened here.
Our growth happened here.

There’s a really special connection we feel with this community.

Building a community and becoming part of one is honestly one of the proudest achievements of my life.

What a journey it’s been.

And truthfully? I wouldn’t change a thing.

To our loyal customers, our team, our family, and especially the Dumpling Cheers community... Thank you for being part of this journey with us.