We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Prabin Gautam a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Prabin, thanks for joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?
Thank you so much for the good question. If you want to be successful in your life, first you need to think about what you are doing now. If you like the work, ensure you have good knowledge about the business. Dedicate your work as a part of life and work daily towards getting good feedback rather than profit. Ultimately, you will reach your goal and can enjoy success.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am Prabin Gautam, born and raised in Nepal, and currently run the Nepali and Indian restaurant, Kathmandu Kitchen which is located in Cary, North Carolina. I started my career as a dishwasher in a restaurant, located in South Dakota in 2015. While working there, I was fascinated by cooking. I used to follow the Chef’s work and try to replicate the recipe at home. Gradually, I learned to cook various foods and got a good response from the chef and colleague. At the end of 2016, the main chef left the restaurant and I got the opportunity to work as a Chef. I knew most of the recipes but there were a few items that I learned to cook from the restaurant’s owner. I enjoyed cooking and liking the restaurant environment. This motivated me to start my own business. I moved to North Carolina in 2020 as my wife has a job here. I started to look for a job but it was the beginning of the Covid. I could not find any job for five months, Then, I got information that a restaurant was selling due to the loss. I checked the restaurant and its location. I started my own business in June 2020. For the first four months, I worked day and night to complete all the maintenance at the restaurant and covered all the expenses by myself. I still remember that the restaurant per day sale was $53 for one of the days, but I did not give up. On that day, my wife and I decided to change the menu completely and modify our website. The dine-in business was not doing well due to the COVID precautions, But I worked very hard to attract customers for the take-out, delivery, or curbside pick-up orders, I ensured that all the food safety precautions were followed. By the end of 2020, slowly, the business sales started to boost and more customers liked our food. Since then, the restaurant has been doing very well. Even though there were many financial hurdles, I was determined to provide good food to our customers.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
I met my current partner, Shiva Khatri in our common friend’s house. I was looking for the Tandoori Chef and got to know that he was interested to learn cooking. He came to the restaurant to look for a job. At that time, the business was not doing well. I gave him a proposal that I would train you to become a cook but the salary would be less. He accepted the offer and joined the restaurant. Then, our business sales started growing rapidly. He showed an interest in getting a share in the business. After two months of working together, I liked his honesty and dedication to his job. Since then, it has been four years of our partnership and I feel him as my brother than a business partner.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
My wife and I were saving money to build our house for four years. We signed to build a new construction house which would take 6 to 8 months. We had our saving enough for the 20 % down payment. Meanwhile, due to COVID, we got an extremely good offer to buy the business. We decided to invest in a business and have only a 10% downpayment. By the time, we closed our house, the business also started to grow. By God’s grace, both our business and home purchase plans were successful.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kathmandukitchencary.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathmandukitchencary
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kathmandu.kitchen.180
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/kathmandu-kitchen-cary