💬 Our small hotel in Jeddah was empty for 5 weeks. Then the big one next door shut for a day

In 2022 my brother in law and I put most of our savings into a small hotel in Jeddah. He handled the kitchen. I did the counter in the evenings after my office job. We thought we had it figured out. Problem was where we opened. 2 shops down was a hotel that was full every single day, lunch line out onto the road. People waited 20, 30 minutes there. Our place was right next to it, clean, freshly painted, food ready. Empty. I'm not exaggerating. Some days 3 or 4 customers. Some days zero. Food going cold in the trays. I used to stand at the counter every evening watching that line and doing the rent in my head. After 5 weeks my brother in law said let's close before we lose more. I didn't argue much. We'd both lost more than we'd told our wives by then. One evening I saw the owner of the big hotel standing outside, looking down the street at our place. He nodded at me once and went back in. I thought nothing of it. Maybe he was laughing at us, who knows. 2 days later I came to open up and his shutter was still down at 11 in the morning. That never happens. There was a paper taped on it in Arabic and Urdu. Closed today, please try our neighbours. His regulars stood there reading it for a minute, confused, and then they walked over to us. Every table full, first time since we opened. Ran out of rice by 2 and sent the boy for more. Some of them came back the next week even with his shop open. Some started eating at both places. Couple of months later both places were busy and we finally stopped bleeding money. I went to thank him. He waved his hand, said rizq is from Allah, sit, have tea. Never mentioned it again. We still have tea when I pass by. I've never asked him why he did it and I don't think I will. He could've kept every one of those customers and nobody would have said a word. That's what gets me. Anyone here had something like this happen, someone you'd call a competitor helping you out?

My cloud kitchen in Tolichowki shut in 2022, and competition was a big part of it, 20 kitchens selling the same biryani. Nobody closed their shutter for us, that's for sure. So this one hit a bit different. Lots of people talk about trusting Allah with rizq. Very few live it like that man did. May Allah put barakah in both your places, and keep that man's shop full.

Our rizq is written by Allah, so helping others never takes away what is already meant for us, no matter how it might seem in the moment.

Read this to my father on the phone and he went quiet. He ran a small shop in Mehdipatnam for 20 years.