Venkatesh Iyer, co-founder of Goli Vada Pav, says his company is planning a massive expansion, with 500 franchise outlets across India in the next five years. Photo by Subhash Sharma

Mumbai street food on a roll with Goli Vada Pav

By Anuj Chopra

MUMBAI - Vada pav, a fried, spicy potato dumpling stuffed inside a sliced bread roll and slathered with hot sauce, is an inexpensive delicacy served all over Mumbai. It is usually prepared and eaten at roadside kiosks or at the pushcart eateries that are ubiquitous on the city's unruly streets.

It looks like something you must not ingest, and savouring its tantalising flavours requires that you wilfully abandon all basic rules of gastronomy and hygiene.

It is perhaps the least likely item upon which to build India's very own fast food chain, a brand with the potential to become as big and powerful as, say, McDonald's or Burger King. Yet two Mumbai entrepreneurs with a background in corporate finance embarked on this quest seven years ago. The competition was stiff, as building a brand for this home-grown version of the burger meant competing with countless successful roadside rivals.

Goli Vada Pav, a chain founded in 2004 by Venkatesh Iyer and Shivdas Menon, changed the way this popular snack is prepared - and consumed. It took the snack indoors into a more gentrified ambience and made it a sterilised, upmarket version of its original self, all the while without tinkering one bit with the alluring taste that sustains vada pav's mass appeal.

READ MORE: http://www.thenational.ae/business/mumbai-street-food-on-a-roll-with-goli-vada-pav