MY STORY

The Journey That Started with Passion

Some people stumble into the restaurant business. I ran toward it.

As a teenager, I knew one thing with complete certainty, I wanted to build something in food and hospitality. While my friends were figuring out college majors, I was already planning my entry into an industry that would test every bit of my determination, creativity, and resilience.

After finishing school, I enrolled at the Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) Ahmedabad to study hospitality management. But education was just the beginning. The real lessons came from what happened next.

From Hospital Catering to Multi,Brand Cloud Kitchen

Fresh out of IHM, I did what most entrepreneurs are told not to do,I jumped straight into starting my own business. In 2020, I launched Straina Foods as a hospital catering company, serving meals to patients and staff across multiple healthcare facilities. It was unglamorous work, but it taught me the fundamentals: managing food costs, maintaining consistency, scaling operations, and most importantly, understanding what makes a food business profitable.

But I wasn't satisfied with just B2B catering. I saw an opportunity in the emerging cloud kitchen model and decided to expand Straina Foods into the consumer space. What started as one brand grew into a multi,brand cloud kitchen operating 23 brands across 6 different categories,from North Indian comfort food to continental cuisine to desserts.

Running Two Ventures Simultaneously

While building Straina Foods, I also joined Ghost Kitchens India in 2021 as a Senior Operations Executive. Yes, I was running both at the same time. Looking back, I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone, but it accelerated my learning exponentially.

At Ghost Kitchens India, I initially managed aggregator,side operations across India, working with platforms like Swiggy and Zomato to optimize performance for restaurants nationwide. The scope expanded quickly. I was soon handed complete operational responsibility for Gujarat—18 restaurants, multiple brands, dozens of team members, and millions in revenue.

Managing 18 restaurants while running my own business taught me something crucial: the principles that make one restaurant successful are the same principles that make ten or twenty restaurants successful. Systems, processes, people management, and financial discipline,these fundamentals scale.

Expanding Horizons: Germany and Beyond

By 2023, I had sold Striana Foods. The business was successful, but I had bigger plans. I wanted to study international business, experience hospitality in a different market, and eventually help more restaurant owners beyond just running my own ventures.

In 2023, I moved to Germany to pursue a Master's in International Business Management at GISMA University. The goal wasn't just academic,I wanted to understand how hospitality and restaurant businesses operated in different markets, cultures, and regulatory environments.

I worked with several restaurants in Germany, experiencing firsthand how European food businesses approached operations, customer service, and profitability. The challenges were different, but the fundamentals remained the same.

The Writing Journey: From Blogs to a Book

I started writing in 2020. Initially, it was just blogs,thoughts, observations, lessons from running my businesses. I contributed articles to hospitality magazines, sharing insights on operations and management.

But in 2024, I felt a pull to write again. Not just blogs,this time, a book. I wanted to create something that didn't exist when I started: a comprehensive, practical, no,nonsense guide to running a profitable restaurant. Not theory from someone who studied hospitality but never ran a business. Not generic advice that sounds good but doesn't work in the real world.

That's how "Design Dine Dominate" was born. Published in August 2025, it covers everything from developing your restaurant concept and choosing the right location to securing funding, building your team, creating SOPs, marketing effectively, managing finances, handling customers, and planning for expansion.