At the end of the day, a profession that makes one happy, brings the biggest satisfaction. Yes, money does matter, but as it is said, “money cannot buy happiness”, it has to come from within. For Amit Naik, this story fits in to the core.
After completing his Hotel Management from Mangalore University, Amit entered into business by selling information technology (IT) products about a decade ago. This not only helped him gain experience of customer service but also helped him save capital to launch his new restaurant “Moms Recipes” at Verna Industrial Estate in 2007.
He now, not only smiles to see his regular customers bee-lining at his restaurant, but he also ensures all of them, who are mainly about 200 corporate honchos go back smiling after a relaxed hygienic lunch.
“Before I ventured into the IT business, in 2000, I used to have a tiffin delivery system and the food was prepared in my home and supply to the Verna Industrial Estate. I did not have much capital to start a restaurant then and I did lose lot of money in the tiffin system as I was unable to recover the money from my customers,” said Amit Naik, proprietor of Mom's Recipes.
On June 17, 2007 Mom's Recipes finally took shape in Verna Industrial Estate and it started off with a small kitchen, offering only “Thaalis” to its then 28 customers on seven tables spread across in the same place. His wife, Tanushree, an electronics engineer by qualification, did help him out in the kitchen. People did like it and Amit received several feedback which helped him introduce new dishes, and within a month, it took off. “I introduced my mothers recipe, hence the name. However, my mother’s food is still the best, even though she appreciates the food served here. She does come here very often,” added Mr Naik.
Apart from all these close associates, he had some very dedicated friends who helped Amit to take this challenge. By December 2007, they introduced north Indian food along with the typical Goan fish curry rice “thaalis” and gradually increased their seating capacity to 80 and modernised the kitchen equipped with best possible equipments. “Now 80 people can sit at one point of time and relish the 35 different items that we serve. We have around three sitting in this quick service restaurants, which ensures that people are served within 10 minutes as they all are office goers and their lunch time is defined. We also try to ensure that in a matter of 15 minutes the next table should change and hence great speed and good number of staff is required to run this,” said Amit.
Corporate big wigs who visit Goa do not miss to take the advantage of parcel system from this restaurant before they fly out, and share this delectable authentic Goan food with their loved ones at their home town.
“Mr Manohar Parrikar would just call me that he would need his preferred food and before I can reach the restaurant, he is already in my kitchen. Very pleasant surprise. Sachin Tendulkar’s father-in-law is also a regular visitor. The list is long. Be it famous ex-cricketer Mohinder Amarnath, many managing directors of several companies are also here. Mr Nitin Kunkolienker, past president of GCCI, VIA and now all India president of MAIT is an another regular here,” added Mr Naik.
Amit now dreams to grow bigger and have a factory outlet and better delivery system. He has also recently tied up with food deliver firm which ensures proper and timely delivery of food at the office table.