Two young men from Mumbai have sold their heads in London, opened five restaurants in 10 years, now have an annual turnover of 140 million.

Two young men from Mumbai have sold their heads in London, opened five restaurants in 10 years, now have an annual turnover of 140 million.


Sujay and Subodh were studying at Rizvi College, Mumbai. While doing the job, he thought that he has to do his own business.

Mumbai's Sujay and Subodh started Vadapau's business in London, standing on the road and testing people, branding with tea
Launched fifth restaurant in August despite lockdown, now working on making the brand international, also employs 40 people



Vadapau is very famous in Mumbai. Vadapau is available in many places which also cost only 10 rupees. Some people even spend the whole day eating Vadapau. Two friends from Mumbai used to eat Vadapau every day while studying in college. Most of the pocket money was spent on the head. After which the two went to London to study further. I got a good job there but I missed a lot like Mumbai and boiled tea.

When the recession hit in 2009, one of his friends lost his job. This is the only opportunity they have to start a business in London. Today, the duo owns five restaurants in the UK and has an annual turnover of 1.5 1.5 million. We talked to both of them and tried to talk about their success.

Let's talk about Sujay Sohani and Subodh Joshi in their own words ...

We have both been friends for the last 25 years. It was 1999, when we were studying at Rizvi College in Mumbai. From there he was graduating in hotel management. After three years of study, he planned to do PG Foreign in Hotel Management. Gave several entrance exams. We got admission in a university in UK. We had an 18-month course, of which 9 were internships. The two were offered an internship together in 2003.

The company liked our work very much and they offered us a job as well as extended our visa. The job was going well. Both were growing at their respective levels. Positions up to Supervisor and Assistant Manager were found. But Sujay lost his job in the wake of the 2009 recession. Even while living in London, both of us often missed the head of Mumbai.

I wanted to drink boiled tea but could not find it. After Sujay's job was gone, we made a plan as to why the two of them could not start a business here together. But, we didn't have good savings or even a property. Our home loan was running. So it was decided that Subodh would continue to work and Sujay would handle the business completely.

When Subodh and Sujoy started the business, they had no savings. That said, if the business hadn't run for three months, we would have had to do some work

Renting a shop in a good place in London requires a six-month deposit. Agreement is made. There are all kinds of other expenses as well. We didn’t have that much capital. We were looking for a place that could be found cheaply. While searching we found a cafe of a man from Poland.

We asked for a small space in his cafe. Didn't expect him to give up, but he agreed. He provided us with a small space for the kitchen and also allowed us to use one or two tables and chairs in the cafe.

We asked for a small space in his cafe. Didn't expect him to give up, but he agreed. He provided us with a small space for the kitchen and also allowed us to use one or two tables and chairs in the cafe.

We planned that Sujay would be here from morning and Subodh would come after his shift from 4 p.m. We started making vodka and tea from the seven by seven kitchen. We had trouble figuring out how to get people here to get heady and boiled tea.

So we thought let's get people tested. One of us was standing on the main road and we ate four pieces of bread. People from there used to get their head tested for free and told that we have a shop here, you can test.

It started with a head start, but later the item grew in the menu

Then we came up with the idea that we should start in the same way that Bando delivers tea to every shop in India, as tea is not delivered in this way anywhere in London. We would go for tea delivery and also bring the head order.

Our number was also given at the shops that whenever you feel like drinking tea or wanting to eat Vadapau just call, we will deliver to your shop. This work we started in the whole area around the shop.

Our tea idea hit. Tea also started selling a lot and orders of Vadapau were also received. Soon customers started coming to us. The situation was such that all the customers in the cafe were ours. This is the reason why earlier when we were paying 400 400 rent, it later increased to 00 1500.

Many Indian celebs from UK also started visiting Sujay and Subodh's restaurants and continued to enjoy Indian tastes.

We stayed there from August 2010 to January. After which the shop was sold. Then we shifted to another place. The rent there was two thousand pounds, but now became our customer base. People around began to recognize. Then Subodh also quit his job and both of them started working full time. One was overseeing the kitchen and the other was overseeing the restaurant.

Amaki's wife and some office colleagues also quit their jobs and joined us. Subodh's wife helped a lot in the kitchen. In 2011 we rented a larger space. The situation became such that even the police used to come to us to ask why there was such a crowd here.

Even boiled tea was not found anywhere else. At the same time we started selling other items, such as misal pau, paumbhaji, bhajiya, samosa. We made everything in Indian style so people liked the taste of what we got there.

The work that started from a small place was now spread out. Five restaurants are running

After which we also started getting catering orders. There were no small orders in London, but we also took party orders for 30 to 50 people. The work grew so much that we started outsourcing some things. Gradually we started opening a branch of Lord Krishna Vadapau in a new area. By 2017, there were four branches. Has now become five brands.

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As the branch grew, so did our menu items. Even after the lockdown, we have started a new branch in August. Many organizations have been honored, as we are offering jobs there at such times. We have never compromised with test and quality.

This is the reason why many people started working for us after seeing us, but there was no success. Both have directors in the company. Has given jobs to 40 people. Work is now underway to make the brand international. There are many countries where even today Indians do not get the food of their choice. We will open our branch to those countries.