Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Renuka Gulati. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Renuka, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

We started 3 years out of our home kitchen. In our network, a few family friends were in need for having regular home cooked healthy and tasty food. Since I have always taken interest in hosting family and friends, having bigger gatherings around food, I saw the opportunity to help out my network. With my family’s help, we put together a menu covering items that I best prepared and priced them to cover for our costs. We started sharing our menu to our friends, via personal messages and thats how we landed our first few orders. I grew from the few couple to about 12-15 orders per day which allowed me to hone my skills and service a small group out of my home kitchen. Last Diwali 2021, we decided to take this to a bigger commercial scale. We researched all the legal requirements of running a business, signed a contract for a commercial kitchen lease and now operate our business out of Wingman’s Kitchen at Springdale General

While operating out of my house felt easier to manage, I knew I had to get more exposure and run a business at a bigger scale. I am happy that, while servicing my small network of family and friends out of home I perfected my recipes, learning ways to cook with speed and at scale, this really helped me to hit the ground running out of commercial kitchen. This was a really important step in our journey.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am Renuka Gulati, having graduated with a Master’s Degree in Home Science from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, I always took interest in creating beautiful culinary experiences for my family and friends. After my marriage to my husband – Naresh Gulati, his job in the Hotel Industry, gave me exposure to learning about how Culinary is practiced as a profession by Chefs and at the same time I got to experience cuisines in many cities in India and Abroad. I took an interest in preparing and presenting meal learning from the best in Industry. I also participated in many small competitions winning awards and recognition. We decided to move to USA after my husband retired and decided to practice professionally in the Culinary Industry.
This past Diwali (Nov 4th 2021) , I was invited to prepare Hindu Satvik Lunch for Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas at their residence in LA.
We are an Indian Food Take-Away business. We operate commercially in Austin from our location 1023 Springdale Road, Unit 1, Austin 78721.
I take pride and pleasure in serving all my customers authentic, unaltered flavors of North India at the same time making sure fresh and aroma is not compromised. Butter Chicken is are our Top-Rated dish and the secret to the recipe is the tender flavor that gets instilled during the marinating and grilling process.
I connect personally and thank all my customers for giving us the opportunity to serve them.
I receive a lot of support and guidance from my family, my daughter – Akanksha, my son – Anish and their spouses – Amritesh and Kriti respectively. But the biggest pillar of my strength is my Husband – Naresh, who has supported me financially and emotionally on each and every step of my journey.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

We moved to the US in 2019 after my husband retired from his profession. It was a major change in our life – financially and emotionally. Moving onto another country in a senior age is not easy but it can be a very rewarding experience if done rightly. We have faced all sorts of barriers but having the support of your family is the best thing I can ask for. Everyday I learn a new way of living and I am thankful for that.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

Me and my husband personally thank each and everyone of our customers be it via text, whatsapp, google reviews, uber doordash or even personal meetings. We take feedback very seriously and make it our responsibility to make the experience great for our clients. You will see this reflect in our Google Ratings of 4.9 in over 500+ reviews which has come after building our brand every single day with our food and our customer service.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://goo.gl/maps/Z7SzYkmYQfxScmy8A
• Instagram: renukaskitchen.atx
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/renukagulatikitchen
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/renuka-s-kitchen-austin