From the early days of running the business, he has opened his doors to Shepparton’s vulnerable and homeless. It started, he says, when a single person couldn’t afford to pay for a meal.



“People would come in and say, ‘mate, I don’t have any money. Can I have a meal and I’ll pay you next week?’”, he says. “I said OK once, then twice, then I realised, they’re not going to bloody pay! So we had a discussion with my wife and the kids and said, ‘what are we doing? We’re handing them food, and some people say they’re hungry, how should we treat them?’”

“The kids said, ‘dad, you treat them the way you want to treat them’. And that’s what we did.”

Today, his charity, People Supporting People, feeds up to 120 people in the Goulburn Valley each night. During the summer, if bushfires or floods hit anywhere in Victoria, Azem locks up his shop, starts up his mobile kitchen and heads straight to wherever disaster has hit.

“I have a great respect for men or women in the uniform,” he says. “When the shit hits the wall, they’ll come for us, they won’t ask who you are or what you are. They’ll come and save our lives. The least we can do is give them a warm meal and a cappuccino.”

For his efforts, Azem was awarded an Order of Australia medal on Australia Day. But he says it’s not about medals. His deep Muslim faith means it’s charity, not pride, that drives him.