Melbourne waitress who lost her job creates booming $25k baking side hustle

She lost her job as a waitress but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, and now Mona Route is raking in the cash.

A Melbourne waitress who lost her job because of Covid-19 has been making as much as $3000 a month from a booming side hustle.

Mona Route, 27, was let go as a waitress at Tullamarine Airport after five years working there when the coronavirus pandemic arrived on Australia’s shores in March 2020.

She was hit with a double whammy later that year when the city was plunged into a 112-day lockdown.

“I was so bored. That’s when I started baking,” she recalled to news.com.au.

Losing her job turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the spare time gave her the opportunity to explore complicated dessert recipes and also made her motivated to lose weight.

As her “cheat meal” to make the dieting bearable Ms Route created loaded cookies as a guilty pleasure.

Soon her family were begging her to do more and an idea ignited when her dad suggested she sell her cookies.

And so Mona’s Treats was born.

Mona Route started her lucrative side hustle in September 2020.

She has 15 unique flavours for her cookies.

Ms Route created an Instagram account for her loaded cookies and then spent $500 initially getting together enough ingredients for a big batch.

“When I started creating my flavours, at first I would sell around 30 or 40, it was quite little,” she admitted.

Ms Route soon nabbed another frontline job but she continued with Mona’s Treats, working on the burgeoning business during her days off.

The business started off slow but it has since taken off.

Some times she wakes up at 2am to keep up with the many orders she receives.

Now, on average, she sells around 450 cookies a month.

She delivers the cookies around Melbourne but also uses express post to supply the rest of Australia.

Her best stretch was in August last year, at the height of Melbourne and Sydney’s delta-prompted lockdowns, selling a whopping 700 cookies.

It takes her around 10 hours to make 200 cookies.

She lost her job of half a decade working as a waitress.

Her business is entirely Instagram-based.

Since its launch in Melbourne’s first extended lockdown, Mona’s Treats has made more than $25,000 in revenue.

Based in her home that she shares with her parents in Officer, Ms Route uses a separate pantry to store her supplies.

Her kitchen has been registered with the Shire of Cardinia local council.

Some of her ingredients are from the local supermarket while others are sourced from overseas, like her cookies and cream spread, which she imports from Italy.

In her best month, Ms Route made 700 cookies.

To quit her day job and turn Mona’s Treats into a full-time enterprise, Ms Route wants to sell at least 1500 cookies every month.

She plans to start wholesaling and working with delivery companies like UberEats so that her cookies can feed more people.

“Hopefully one day I can do this in a commercial kitchen,” she added.

Local cafes have already approached her wanting to stock her unique cookies.

Later this month, she will release a special Easter flavour ahead of the buying rush. She is also exploring cookie pies as another menu item option.

She was 26 when she started Mona’s Treats.

Mona made special edition cookies around Christmas time.

Ms Route makes the filling the night before then bakes the cookies in the morning.

She has created 15 flavours so far, but the most popular cookie by far is the $8 ‘Kinderella’ which has cream cheese, Nutella and Kinder Bueno filling.

Customers can buy boxes of four cookies (and they can all be different flavours) for $25 while boxes of six go for $36 and boxes of eight are $47.

If you just want to buy one cookie, it will cost you $6.25.

Ms Route charges $20 to drive up to 80 km for a delivery. However, on “delivery days” she charges just $4. As she receives more orders on those days, she makes up for the extra costs.

Unfortunately, for the last month, she hasn’t been able to make any cookies because her oven broke. It is now fixed.

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