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The Resiliency of an Entrepreneur

May 12, 2010 by Anamika

So Suresh (my wonderful husband, co-owner of Kasa, Google employee) is speaking next week at the San Francisco Small Business Conference about how small businesses can use online tools to manage their business (using Kasa as a case study).  It got me thinking about entrepreneurship and how much resiliency is required to be successful.

When we meet other small business owners, there is a definite and instant camaraderie, an unspoken understanding that we belong to the same club.  No matter our product or service, our shared painful, exhausting, rewarding and sometimes humiliating experiences bond us together (even if we mercilessly compete with each other).

Acquaintances often ask us to share our experience of running a restaurant as they consider embarking on their own dream venture, so this post is for those brave souls.  I will say that Tim, Suresh and I are still seriously in learning mode even after 2 years, but so far this is a collection of what I’ve learned.

If you’re confident about your food and can raise enough money to get started, then you’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg. Thereafter, no matter how much preparation and due diligence you’ve done, chaos will ensue.  This is some of what we have been dealing with:

  • Smelling of Chicken Tikka ALL the time
  • Not seeing your children and family for days at a time (no exaggeration)
  • Being self critical to an extreme and disciplining yourself with an iron fist
  • Scrubbing things clean for hours
  • Lifting stuff so heavy, you permanently have shoulder or wrist aches
  • Controlling your emotions, not showing how upset or angry you are
  • Stopping yourself from stalking and throttling an ignorant yelper (although mostly people LOVE US ON YELP, and we LOVE them…   :)
  • Paying attention to mind numbingly boring details
  • Thinking, eating, sleeping and dreaming your restaurant
  • Listening to everyone on your staff’s issues and dealing with them
  • Going wherever necessary with your menu to shamelessly promote your restaurant
  • Making mistakes and moving on optimistically
  • Learning Spanish at 10pm at night after a long day at work
  • Watching your friends have a social life on the weekends without you since it’s your busiest work time
  • Trusting your instincts and confidently hiring (and firing) people
  • Forgetting about privacy – your phone is on 24/7
  • Having unyielding faith in your food and concept
  • Giving up everything you own to the bank, including your first born child
  • Did I mention…smelling of Chicken Tikka ALL the time!

On the flip side, there is nothing more I would rather be doing with my life as I love Kasa deeply — despite the occasions when I feel I can’t take the stress any more, like the time I checked myself into a hotel for the weekend, told Suresh and Tim I wasn’t coming in and switched my phone off.  I pretended to be a tourist with my English accent, walked the city, met a bunch of friendly Americans who gave me recommendations on where to eat, shopped and went back to Kasa recharged.

Most importantly, prepare to pace yourself and take a vacation before a breakdown.

If you’re still up for plunging ahead despite all this, then you’re as mad as we are and we look forward to bonding with you as a comrade in arms one day.

Anamika

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In Defense of English Food

March 13, 2010 by Anamika

Recently I heard that London was named among the world’s top 5 food cities by Food & Wine Magazine. I have to admit I was suprised, as when I go back home to London, I don’t usually find this amazing food they talk about. For me, San Francisco wins hands down for the best food around.

In London’s defense, I will say that I spend most of my time in Hounslow/Southall, the Indian enclaves of London where I grew up — if you’ve seen the film Bend It Like Beckham, it was filmed round the corner from my house. There is some really good Indian/Pakistani food in Hounslow/Southall, but the rest is just fast food pizza, fried chicken and doner kebab shops. I usually don’t eat out much as I’m busy enjoying my Pinky Aunty’s Indian home cooking. (Most of Kasa’s recipes originated from Pinky Auntie.)

As a result, I’m not really in the know as to which restaurants to try in Central London for amazing food.

Having said that, English food can get a bad rap abroad, and I spend much of my time trying to defend it’s honour. I’ve spent the last two weeks in London visiting my cousin Amars who had a major operation and I took this opportunity to get through my list of ‘MUST EAT’ English food before I head back to San Francisco:

1) English Breakfast

There really isn’t anything as satisfying as this, especially after a hangover. Much as I like American breakfasts, nothing quite hits the spot like pork sausages (with absolutely no hint of apple or anything sweet in it), baked beans (again a lot less sweet), proper bacon (that is bacon with meat on it and not crispy fat), eggs, tomatoes and fried mushrooms. Admittedly the whole thing can be a little greasy and seriously filling, but it is utterly delicious and you don’t have to think about food for many many hours to come!

2) Chicken and Mushroom Pie

This pie is comfort food at it’s best. Shortcrust pastry soaked in the thick gravy of the chicken and mushroom filling… yum! Or even yummier is Steak and Kidney pie… wow! Pot pies in the US just don’t compare.

3) Savoury pastries

  • Sausage rolls – a delicious, basic English sausage covered in a very light flaky pastry… when it’s cold and raining outside and you need a snack, this totally lifts your spirits.
  • Cornish pasties – a thicker pastry filled with minced beef and vegetables.  I crave this from accross the continent constantly.

4) Treacle Pudding with Hot Custard

I might say that sometimes I miss this dessert more than my family in London. It’s a light sponge pudding that has been steamed with a thin layer of sweet treacle and covered with steaming hot custard. The endorphins released when you eat this are unparalleled. I really really wish that I could find this in SF. Has anyone seen it around?  I probably have gained quite a few pounds on this dessert alone.

5) English Roast

Roast Lamb, mint sauce, yorkshire pudding, basic boiled vegetables and roast potatoes (NO MASH) with really rich gravy (very different to American gravy) is divine. Eating this on a Sunday in the pub brings back great memories.

6) A visit to Nandos

No trip to London is complete for me without a trip to this popular South African chain of Chicken and Chips. They are super successful here and on their way to the US soon. Their peri peri marinated grilled chicken with peri peri sauce and wild herb sauce with chips (thick french fries) is superb. The sides are really good too. They have different levels of heat from lemon and herb all the way to xtra hot! I keep mine at the sensible medium heat.

I come back home to San Francisco tomorrow and will have to crave these foods until my next visit. It was funny to hear, though, that my cousin Amar was craving Kasa’s Chicken Tikka Masala Kati Roll from his recovery bed at Kings Hospital!

Get better quickly, Aams, so you can get to San Francisco for your kati roll fix!

Anamika

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Punjabi Santa

January 10, 2010 by Anamika

It’s 2010, the holiday season is over, and I’m glad!  Don’t get me wrong, I kind of like the holidays…. using up all my patience putting up lights on the tree, overeating, mandatory time with the family, missing folks back home and shopping (I hate shopping!). The highlights of this holiday season for me were:

  • Suresh’s joke about the ’Punjabi Santa’ (like Santa, he has a beard, is tall and plump, and say Hoy Hoy Hoy)
  • Going to Winter Wonderland in Tilden Park in Berkeley with the kids
  • Dancing to Country, Salsa and Hip Hop at the Kasa Staff Holiday Party

But I couldn’t relax, as in the midst of all this, K2 (aka Kasa Marina) launched and Tim and Mer had their third baby (aka V3).  This should have been a time of only serious hard work for us, and whilst all of us at Kasa put that work in, it had to be so stop and start because of the holidays.  We literally had to force ourselves not to think or do any work on Xmas day and spend it with our families, and try to understand that the government and rest of the country were going slower because of the holidays.

So I’m glad that life is back to normality and we can just steam ahead with work now, as we have a lot more ahead of us.  The pressure is on high, not only because we have a bigger space and higher rent at K2.  We opened around December 19, and these first few weeks have been pretty steady but not that many people in the Marina know that we exist yet and we need customers flooding in.

Whilst it’s exhilarating and satisfying to have a successful restaurant or to get some wonderful press,  margins in our business are slim so we have to be super successful to make it all add up, and that pressure extends all the way through to our staff. Our staff need their hours maxed out (or else we lose them) to make rent, support families here and back home, put themselves through school or, like our Line Cook Extraordinaire Gomez who is about to have his first baby, just survive in SF. The emotional pressure of being successful is intense as our families, staff, vendors and on and on rely on us.  More customers means more hours for our staff, which means more tips (which is vital to their livelihood) and ultimately more raises.

So instead of waiting around for the Punjabi Santa to deliver a bushel of money, we’ve come up with our own Kasa Plan of Action:

  1. Continue to keep the food as excellent as humanly possible
  2. Continue to train our staff to provide warm, wonderful service, even if on occasion you have to deal with a not-so-pleasant customer
  3. Community outreach and education in the Marina — introduce ourselves and turn people on to delicious, homestyle Indian food
  4. Connect with all of our customers as much as possible…like through this blog :)

I’m confident that with a little more time and work, we will all reap the rewards of our hard work, all whilst consistently giving our endless love to Kasa Castro.  In the meanwhile, we thank you all for your continued support and hope that you’ll pass the word to your friends.

Love, Anamika

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On Motherhood, Poker and Mischievous Monkeys

November 24, 2009 by Anamika

I live my life in 5th gear!  A few years ago, I realized that I needed to speed up even further if I wanted to get through the monumental list of “Things to Accomplish in my Life” as it was only halfway complete.

I had put this list together when I was in high school and it still holds true for me today. The list in pieces goes something like this:

1.  To become a wife and a mother

This means the world to me.  If no other thing on the list ever got achieved, I decided I would be content with this.  It drove my family of strong women and feminist-bent friends a little crazy as I would preach that my ambition was to be a ‘Housewife’.

2. To write a book

This one was by far the most difficult for me.  I tried a couple of times, playing with Indian historical fiction, a biography, boarding school stories, but the discipline of this art is daunting.

MonkeyMy good friend Annie (the artist who started Studio Rasa) really helped me in achieving this when we decided to work together on a children’s story based on street animals of India.  I wrote and she illustrated beautifully.  We decided that we would finish the book no matter what!

She helped me accept that I would write this book even if it never got published and to put aside all fears of rejection, and better still, to do it at a mellow, creative pace rather than at full speed.  We did indeed finish the book and self-published it.  You can download a free copy of The Mischievous Monkey here — I’d love to hear your feedback!

Producing the book made me realize what a talented artist Annie is.  Her illustrations are stunning and her work is beautiful.  The use of colour is my favourite part.  Most importantly, it helped give me the confidence that I could start and finish a project and enabled me to move on to number 3 on my list…

3. To open a restaurant

Although I’d imagined doing a high-end sit down Indian restaurant, Kasa has proven to be way more fun and in line with my speedy nature.  Annie designed our cool logo, the beautiful artists map on the website and the subtle wall of sanskrit above the banquette at Kasa Castro. kasa_indian_eatery_map300px She also helped me to communicate my vision of simple Indian materials for our clean decor. Our customers, of course, are mainly to be thanked sincerely for supporting Kasa and allowing us to continue to be able to cook for you all everyday.

4.  World Tournament Poker champion

Well I haven’t done this one yet, and have accepted that I probably never will.  A very apt poker saying here goes:

“You aren’t as good as you think or as bad as you think.”

5.  I can’t really talk about this one, as it needs an element of surprise.

6.  This one may be offensive to some if it is not accompanied with a deeper explanation.  I don’t really have the words or the idea down yet.

Take care,

Anamika

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The UnKasa Meal

April 1, 2009 by Anamika

Friends always ask me if I still cook dinner at home now that I work around food all day.  The answer is yes, most definitely, although I have to admit I don’t cook as much as I used to.  There are some days that I’m so tired that I just don’t have the energy to cook, or I’m just not home.  Tonight was one of those nights, with a little twist.  Suresh, my husband who NEVER cooks (other than the best scrambled eggs and Kasa’s awesome chai), decided that he would be healthy, frugal and adventurous and cook dinner for the kids whilst I was working dinner at Kasa.  I gave him some fleeting instructions and ran out the door.
tofu-spinach-fried-rice

I guess it didn’t go so well as I got this picture email half way through the evening.

In the midst of a busy dinner rush along with a brazen tip jar robbery (which warrants its own blog post), I snuck in a quick call home and got my 7 year old food critic son on the phone.  This is what he had to say about the spinach and tofu fried rice:

It looked so so good, but it was the blandest thing I ever tasted.  It had no flavor.  It was plain.  I refused to eat it, but Daddy said I HAD to eat it.

It reminded me of the hilarious “Going For An English” sketch from Goodness Gracious Me — “What’s the blandest thing on the menu?”:

It made me smile to know I was being missed at home and not too easily replaced.  I was also really proud of Suresh, in whose defense I will say: spinach is a hard sell to a kid anyway and in no way reflects on his culinary skills.

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