Yummy recipe of success

MEET YOUR ENTREPRENEUR

Ahmedabad is a haven for foodies. Those who relish the Gujarati food and the hot and spicy Kathiawadi varieties, find the city a perfect place to fill their appetite.

Situated at the Parantha Galli near Ellisbridge, Ram Chandra Porwal's M M Restaurant has been serving these Gujarati food lovers for the last 20 years. And what more, the restaurant has not had a single closed day in the whole of 20 years, not even when the city was rocked by communal riots or earthquake.

From 11 in the morning till midnight, M M Restaurant caters to 500 people a day. Since most of its clientele are office goers and their family members.

From a simple 'pani puris' seller in the 1960's, to the owner of M M Chain of Restaurants, Ram Chandra Porwal has seen it all. "The pani puri business really picked up well during those days. We started selling pani puris worth Rs 500 a day in 1980 and soon started taking orders for parties and opened the first restaurant in Parantha Gali. Soon our paranthas become popular and we began drawing regular customers," said Porwal.

Buoyed by the success of the first venture, Powal started another restaurant in the same area, which specilised in Paw Bhaji.

"The restaurants are named M M Restaurants after my father Chaturbhuj Porwal, who was lovingly called 'mera mama pakori wala' by the children when he used to sell pani puri," said Porwal.

Recently Porwal opened a new branch Paldi with an investment of Rs 50 lakh. His turn over exceeds Rs 25 lakh.

Porwal is married to Puspa, a house wife, with three daughters.

A man of views, Porwal subscribes to over eight Hindi dailies and a few Gujarati dailies apart from various magazines. He spends one-fifth of his day in reading news papers and magazines.

Highly sociable person, Porwal loves to spends his free time in serving the society.

Porwal believes in hard work and is god fearing. He wants to work as long as he can. But when it comes to involving his daughters in the business, he is a thorough traditional. "We belong to Marwar community from Udaipur and in our community girls do not work," affirms Porwal.