The Bohri Kitchen Boss

Young and established, the foodpreneur is happy where he’s at, running a business that’s close to his heart and sharing his story in his first book, out now. Munaf Kapadia has arrived.

Interviewed by Lyle Michael

Let’s begin with the patti samosa, the quintessential Bohri snack, filled with minced mutton, lightly spiced. For this is where it all began, for a young Google account strategist who wanted to take his mum’s traditional Bohri fare to food lovers across Bombay. The snack made it to the cover of How I Quit Google to Sell Samosas – authored by the same strategist – and remains one of the hot-selling items on the menu by The Bohri Kitchen. Munaf Kapadia looks back to December 2014 when the idea for TBK was but a seed in his exuberant mind – one that was itching to do something creative and to share his home food with anyone who wished for a taste of authentic Bohri cuisine.

“One of the brand assets became the patti samosa,” smiles Munaf in his boyish air, “it’s all about the experience at TBK. Back then, I wanted to come up with something for mum to do and for me to challenge myself. I was very interested in social media and was clueless of how to start a business on social media. So, I decided to experiment with TBK.”Bohri food made by his mum, from the Bhavnagiri Mirchi to the Kaju Chicken (the founder’s favourites) and the rest that went into the making of what came to be popularly known as The Bohri Thaals. A metal plate consisting of seven courses of starters, mains, dessert, condiments, and beverages which has progressed to the Travelling Thaal, served at your home with the experience all the same, servers et al. Half of Bollywood are fans, we come to learn.

TBK started off as a home-dining experience when Munaf began inviting friends, then strangers into his home in SoBo and charging them for the whole shebang on offer. The experience gained popularity on Facebook in 2015 and ticket prices began to soar. That’s when they made TBK Home Dining an exclusive experience with a “no serial killer policy” set in stone. Munaf, please explain… “Since I was inviting strangers into my home, I had to whet them obviously. You had to have a conversation with me and I had to get to know you, kind of like a screening for a TBK diner, before I allow you in. This was also marketing arsenal.” Such acumen was much valued at Google where Munaf’s boss was very pleased with his work and came to know about the business on the side, through social media. “I had asked him if I could be transferred to a Google office abroad and his answer to me was, ‘What will happen to TBK if you’re not here?’ He suggested I take a year off and even offered me an investment which I did not take. What I did take was the support he gave me.”

But come 2016, up till 2017, the trying times loomed large for Munaf who had just quit a successful job to start his own business, beginning with a delivery kitchen. He standardised his mum’s recipes, took two years to set up a cloud kitchen and hire staff, only to realise one day in conversation with his CA that he was bankrupt. “I had to pay VAT!,” he exclaims. As Lady Luck would have it, Forbes came a calling just then and gave the 20-something Munaf the news that he was selected for the Forbes Under 30 cover. He was thrilled but had just one question: “I’m bankrupt, so how can I be a successful entrepreneur?” To which the folks at Forbes replied, “It’s not about the scale but what you are trying to do and the ripples you create.” A quote which has stuck with Munaf till today as he continues to ‘successfully’ run TBK as a delivery and catering model only while also working full-time as a consultant, a VP for sales, for leading food brands. Zomato and McDonalds in his portfolio. And now author is added to it.

How I Quit Google to Sell Samosas – HarperCollins India, 2021 – tells the story from riches to ‘rags’ and back to riches, to inspire anyone who has a dream and is unsure of where to begin or how it’s going to work. You just put in the hard work, create those ripples and leave the rest to fate, to the One Above.   

But the Forbes investment did not necessarily mean smooth sailing for the cloud kitchen that TBK transformed into. It was a challenge and it wasn’t until a while that the P&L began to make sense for Munaf who started to approach friends in the industry for capital investment. From 2017 to 2020, TBK was on the rise and the brand was made scalable. Mum’s recipes were streamlined, Munaf’s wife, Zahabia, took charge of the marketing and a team of 45-50 people helped propel TBK city-wide and go QSR, too. A catering arm was also set up, catering across the country… All this and more, till the big C struck and freaked Munaf out.

Munaf recalls, “COVID drained me financially and in terms of morale, too. I thought I was finished. Then, my operations manager, Kadir, told me to get a full-time job, build resources and he would handle TBK. So, I did. We went back to our roots. We did just the delivery kitchen, only pre-orders for 5-7 people and catering for a small number, like 10 orders at Rs3000. We went premium.” Applying everything he acquired from Google and TBK, Munaf did, and is doing, well for himself, his family and his business which will complete a decade next year. “Zahabia and I were in Gurgaon with my position at Zomato, but now we are returning to Bombay, and TBK will gain my full attention once again.”

As Munaf and Zahabia drive back from Gurgaon to Bombay, they will pass all the food spots they’ve mapped out along the way. Jaipur – Udaipur – Baroda – Daman – home… Where mum’s delicious haath ka khana awaits.