After establishing a footprint in the Southeast with units in Georgia and North Carolina, California-based Curry Up Now signed a deal to continue its expansion in the region.
Earlier in August, the brand inked an agreement to develop three locations in Birmingham, Alabama. The deal is with Jignesh Patel, an entrepreneur who brings experience from both the hotel and convenience store industries.
The hospitality industry was first for Patel, who began his business career by owning a Comfort Inn for about six years before moving on to the c-store space with RaceWay. More than eight years later, Patel decided it was time to expand the portfolio with a food concept.
“I started researching concepts and was digging into all kinds of brands,” Patel said. “Eventually I found Curry Up Now and thought it was interesting. It’s also something that can be a good fit for the Alabama market, because there’s no Indian food franchise, this would be the first one.”
Curry Up Now franchisee Jignesh Patel
Patel said he traveled to Georgia to give the food a try and was impressed by the menu options, spurring him to reach out and apply. Additional due diligence included visits to a new store in North Carolina.
“Everything looked amazing,” Patel said. “I liked how the interior was designed, how they had new flatscreen TVs for their menu displays and how they built the concept to make the food preparation so easy.”
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Just as it was important to the new franchisee, the North Carolina opening was also a milestone for the franchisor, as the brand reached the other coast. Curry Up Now was founded by CEO Akash Kapoor in 2009 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Beginning as a food truck, the brand opened its first brick-and-mortar location in 2011 and start franchising in 2018.
Kapoor said the system was launched to maintain a balance between development of corporate locations and franchised units.
“We looked at where we wanted to open stores over the next two-to-four years,” Kapoor said. “We wouldn’t have opened stores in Texas or Georgia, because we wanted to develop our company-owned restaurants along the West Coast, as well as Arizona and Nevada. That was our plan and it still is. But we wanted to franchise so those cities we knew we couldn’t get to fast enough could still have Curry Up Now.”
Since franchising, the brand has reached Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas while also inking an international deal. In 2023 it signed an agreement with Harjinder Atwal to open 60 units in the United Kingdom and Ireland over the next 10 years.
Curry Up Now founder and CEO Akash Kapoor
Curry Up Now has 20 brick-and-mortar locations, with seven of them franchised, as well as three food trucks and several digital kitchen outposts. The first location for Alabama is on track to open in the next six months, and Patel said he is interested in going beyond the original agreement, too.
“We’ll see where the growth takes me,” Patel said. “I’d like to expand to the Tuscaloosa market, too, which has the University of Alabama.”
Patel said the experience so far with Curry Up Now has been “phenomenal,” and added the franchisor has been “very helpful. They go with you over every single step and has given us all the help we need when it comes to things like site selection.”
“Jignesh seems very passionate,” Kapoor said. “Even though he doesn’t have food experience, per se, he still felt like a very good fit for us. I think he’s going to follow the system very well because he has something special. He’s a successful guy who builds his business from scratch, which makes us comfortable.”