Our Story

Kolkata, by way of MacDougal Street.

Payal Saha moved from Kolkata to New York and could not find the street food she grew up on. In 2002 she opened a small shop at 99 MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village and made kati rolls the way she remembered them.

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A hand holding a paper-wrapped kati roll in front of the Bollywood poster wall at our original MacDougal Street store

200299 MacDougal Street

I thought if I missed them so much, other people must too.”

Payal Saha, Founder

Three kati rolls on butcher paper, seen from above

Chicken tikka on steel skewers charring over an open grill

A stack of fresh parathas beside small bowls of chutney

A hand dressing an open kati roll with chutney, seen from above

What a kati roll is

Kati means skewer.

Kati rolls are street food all over Kolkata. The fillings are grilled on a skewer, rolled in buttery paratha and finished with chutneys and spices. We still make them the same way, and we still keep the menu simple: meat and vegetarian rolls, lassis and chips, made fresh every day by hand.

Halal meats

All of them. Chicken is antibiotic and hormone free.

Spices ground by hand

Fresh produce, marinated daily.

Never pre-packaged

No packaged foods or sauces, ever.

Our own yogurt

Lassis from house-made organic yogurt.

Our Food

2002, Greenwich Village

Two people and a very small shop.

Payal had never run a restaurant, and there was no money for a full staff. So she and one assistant ran the first store together: grinding fresh spices, making the bread from scratch and grilling the fillings side by side. Word got around. Good press and loyal regulars, South Asian New Yorkers and everyone else, did the rest.

2002The first store opens at 99 MacDougal Street
300sq ftThe size of that first space, per Eater NY (2016)
3amMacDougal Street's closing time on Friday and Saturday, still

Gloved hands rolling out paratha dough beside trays of dough balls

Parathas cooking on a flat black griddle, turned with a spatula

The walls

Bollywood on the brick.

Walk into a Kati Roll and the walls do the talking: vintage Bollywood posters layered on brick, a painted Mother India mural over the dining room, and a miniature-style painting of a woman with a kati roll. Dallas got the posters too.

Brick wall layered with peeling vintage Bollywood posters inside the Greenwich Village store — Greenwich Village

A painting in the Indian miniature style of a woman in jewelry holding a kati roll — House art

A dining room with wood tables and cage lamps beneath a painted Mother India mural on brick — The dining room

Inside the Dallas store: a brick wall covered in Bollywood film posters above a wood counter — Dallas

Timeline

Twenty-four years, three states.

2002
MacDougal Street
Payal Saha opens the first store in Greenwich Village. Anil Bathwal joins her the same year.
2017
A Breakout Brand (opens in a new tab)
Nation's Restaurant News names The Kati Roll Company one of its Breakout Brands of 2017.
April 2024
Dallas
The first store outside New York opens on Elm Street downtown, as franchising begins.
August 2024
Plano
A second Texas store opens on State Highway 121.
July 2026
Journal Square
The first New Jersey store opens on Bergen Avenue in Jersey City.
Today
7
Seven stores: four in Manhattan, two in Texas, one in New Jersey.
All Locations

The team

The two who started it.

Payal Saha

Founder

Payal started The Kati Roll Company with one simple idea: a place to eat the street food of her hometown. With no restaurant experience, she opened the first store in Greenwich Village in 2002 and worked the counter side by side with one assistant.

Anil Bathwal

Managing Director

Anil is the executive chef and managing director. Before joining Payal in 2002 he was a Creative Director at one of the world's biggest advertising agencies. With no formal hospitality training, he grew a one-store eatery into the company it is today. Weekends are for cooking, painting, sculpting and searching for the next cool font.