Once upon a time, Chef Shachi Mehra was on track to become a doctor. But she couldn’t resist the lure of the kitchen. While we’re sure she would have been an incredible doctor, the culinary world is better for her decision.
After all, she went on to found an acclaimed Indian street food concept in Anaheim called ADYA, land the top prize on Chopped, and use her winnings to launch a thriving consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand called Shachi’s Spice Girl Sauces.
That’s quite a journey, and we just had to hear all about it. So we invited Shachi to drop by and share the whole story with co-hosts Claudia Saric and Spencer Michiel on the most recent episode of So You Want To Run a Restaurant.
Inflection Point
Ever since she was a child, Shachi knew one thing for certain — that she wanted to be a doctor. It was the path she followed throughout her education, dedicating her teenage years to this ambition. By the time she was 19, she was already gaining real-world experience working alongside a seasoned doctor in his 60s. But it was in the midst of this experience that she had a revelation.
“I remember looking at him with a patient, and realizing that I would never be as happy as he was,” Shachi recalled. “And I didn't know how to gauge that moment in my mind, but I know that it actually happened.”
After a lifetime spent pursuing one career path, suddenly Shachi found herself at a crossroads. She explained, “It was almost devastating in that moment, because I was like, ‘What am I supposed to do now?’”
Her sister had an idea. She suggested culinary school. Well, Shachi ultimately never went to a formal culinary school. She decided to learn on the job instead.
Changing Gears
“I'd always enjoyed cooking. I was the one that was making all of our birthday cakes and having dinner parties,” Shachi explained, “but I didn't know anyone in the business. I didn't know anything about the business.”
So she approached a chef at a restaurant in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey to see if he would be willing to sit down with her and answer some of her biggest questions. He did that, and then he did her one better — he invited her to observe the restaurant in action. Then he invited her to work there. For the next six months, she pulled double duty.
“I was working at the doctor's office in the morning, and then I would go to the restaurant, work dinner service, close, and then go home,” she told us. “I look back on that time and think, ‘Man, if I did not feel really strongly about what I was doing, there's no way I would have done it.’”
Five Takeaways From Our Chat With Chef Shachi
Shachi acknowledged that this was a challenging time. But she instantly fell in love with the dynamic buzz of a bustling kitchen. She explained the experience during those first few months of learning the ropes. She recalled, “It was like I felt this energy. This is my place.”
In fact though, it would be several years before she could open a place that was actually hers.
1. Finding the Perfect Flavor
Shachi spent the next several years training in fine dining kitchens from D.C. to California to Newport. She learned directly from highly-regarded chefs and crafted dishes in Michelin Star restaurants. But in the back of her mind, she was always pressed by one ambition.
“I wanted to open my own place,” she explained. “Everything I did working for other people was always fine dining, and all of my background was fine dining, but I was actually in the process of looking for a space.”
During that ongoing search, she also came to an important realization. She explained, “One of the things that I figured out over time is that my purpose in life is to get more people to experience the magic of Indian flavors. That's what I'm supposed to do.”
2. Turning That Idea Into ADYA
Once Shachi figured out what she wanted to do, she had to figure out where to do it. She landed in a remarkable location. As she pointed out, “We’re two miles from Disneyland. It gives us access to a lot of people from a lot of different places, which is amazing.”
In turn, Shachi decided to give all of these travelers access to a type of cuisine that many had never before experienced.
“That's really important to me,” Shachi explained, “and it has come out in so many ways since I opened ADYA.”
As she explained, “Part of what makes Indian food so remarkable is the layering of these flavors. When you take a bite of something and you say, ‘Did I taste something spicy? Let me take another bite.’ And then you take that second bite and you say, ‘Oh, I tasted something else this time. Let me take a third bite.’ and it's revealing something else, or reinforcing something that you just tasted in a way that makes you want to get it again.”
3. Getting the Big Win
Not only would Shachi succeed in capturing this unique culinary experience with ADYA, but her success would land her in the national spotlight. In 2019 Shachi scored a coveted opportunity to compete on the Food Network’s smash hit, Chopped. She proved up to the challenge.
“When it says 20 minutes, you really only have 20 minutes,” she told us. And in that 20 minutes, Shachi had to make a decision. She admits that early in her career, she would push back against her instinct to make Indian food.
As she observed, “You're supposed to make things people want to eat, that they know, that they recognize. So initially, my first gut reaction if it was something Indian would be to push back and go with something that would be considered safer.”
But that’s not what she did when the pressure was on and the clock was ticking. Instead, “Doing that exercise reminded me that I need to go with what I think of first, because that's who I am, and that's an opportunity for me to shine. I did end up making Indian inspired dishes for each of the three courses.”
That turned out to be the right move, because Chef Shachi won.
4. Talking a Big Game
When host Ted Allen crowned Chef Shachi a Chopped champion, he asked her what she planned to do with her winnings. She declared that she would use the money to launch her own consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand based around the unique sauces used in her restaurant. Naturally, saying something like this on television can come with a bit of pressure.
“I think saying it out loud on national TV was the push that I needed to give myself,” Sachi noted. “At that point I was like, ‘Well, now I said it on TV. I've got to do this.”
But that declaration didn’t just come out of the blue. Shachi explained, “It was an idea that I already had in my head, that I want to have a sauce line and I want to have a product line, because ultimately, going back to the original goal, I want as many people to have access to these flavors as possible.”
5. Learning the Business All Over Again
She kept that televised promise, launching Shachi’s Spice Girl Sauces soon after. After all those years spent learning how to work in and run a restaurant, Shachi quickly found that launching a CPG company was a whole other ballgame.
“I learned one thing almost immediately,” Shachi told us. “The only thing that's the same between running a restaurant and having a CPG product is that they're both food. That's literally it.”
“Everything else is different. The language you use is different. The people you deal with are different. How you reach a consumer is different,” Shachi explains. “The 5 million steps before you can reach a consumer with a CPG product are very different from the 5 million steps it takes before you open a restaurant.”
For a deeper dive on the complexities of launching your own CPG, we strongly recommend hearing it directly from Chef Shachi in the full episode above.
Cutting Through the Complexity With the Right Tech
So what happens when your business becomes increasingly complex? How can you scale your operation, grow your business, or add new sources of revenue while keeping your house in order?
With the right technology, for starters. The right POS system or inventory management platform can help bring order and sense to your increasingly complex operation. For all the tools and tech you’ll need to scale your business, schedule your free, personalized consultation with one of our in-house restaurant tech experts and we’ll figure it out together.
