How We Train and Support Our Partners

Our support exists for one reason: a roll in Dallas, Plano or Jersey City should taste like the roll on MacDougal Street, where it started in 2002. Here is what that support covers, in the order you meet it.

All of it rests on a short menu: rolls on paratha or roti, bowls, momos, sides and lassi, cooked on one griddle and one grill. The support below is organized around it.

Before you open: the site and the build

Support starts with real estate. You choose the location with our guidance, and we give final approval of the site. We help with site selection and with lease negotiation, then provide the design and blueprints and guide the leasehold improvements. For scale, the Dallas store is 2,200 square feet on a downtown block, with seats for up to 50.

Equipment follows the same logic: approved suppliers sell you most of it directly, along with the furniture, and we supply certain specialized equipment ourselves.

Before you open: training

Before opening day, you get comprehensive initial training, in the kitchen and on the floor. Every filling is marinated the day it is served and grilled in-house. Parathas are layered, made with butter and lightly fried on a cast-iron griddle, and roti is roasted from whole durum wheat. Training covers the build too: five layers on every roll, always in the same order.

The floor is the other half: the line, the pass and the counter, where a roll is handed over hot in paper. You also get playbooks for operations, hiring and training.

The kitchen: recipes and supply

You cook from our proprietary recipes. What makes our kati rolls so delicious is a proprietary blend of up to 30 hand-ground spices, with yogurt, lime juice and fresh cilantro chutney. To keep every roll the same roll, the spice blends, sauces and breads come from us. You can see the spice library on Our Food.

Some of the flavor is made fresh every day: the lime-cilantro chutney that finishes every roll, with the limes squeezed and the cilantro chopped by hand. It goes on with a medley of sautéed, pickled and fresh onions and a sprinkle of our own chaat masala.

Everything else comes from suppliers we approve, including the meats. All of our meat is certified halal, and our chicken is antibiotic and hormone free.

The menu stays the menu. Partners do not add items, though we give every suggestion due consideration.

Opening day: technology

POS, online ordering and digital loyalty are set up for you before you open. Our franchising page describes built-in tools for delivery, loyalty and marketing, and guests can dine in, pick up or get it delivered.

After you open: marketing

You get targeted marketing services, and a brand with twenty-four years of New York lines behind it and a look of orange, paper and poster walls. Our press coverage since 2006 is collected on our press page, from The Telegraph in Kolkata to Nation's Restaurant News, which named us one of its Breakout Brands of 2017.

After you open: operations

Operational support continues as you scale. You set your own prices, with our guidance on a pricing structure for your location. If you plan more than one store, which we strongly prefer in multi-unit agreements for 3 to 5 units, our post for restaurant operators covers building a group.

What we ask in return

In return, we ask partners to keep the menu as it is, buy the spice blends, sauces and breads from us, use approved suppliers, and run the store by our principle of respect for yourself, your team and the food.

To see where training falls in the calendar, read From Inquiry to Opening. For the people we look for, start with What It Takes to Own a Kati Roll, and for how the store itself works, Why the Kati Roll Format Works. The fees, and what the Franchise Disclosure Document says about them, are in What a Kati Roll Franchise Costs. The full support list is on the franchise page.

This post is not an offer to sell a franchise. An offer is made only by a Franchise Disclosure Document delivered in accordance with applicable law.