Popular Bay Area Indian Street Food Restaurant Gears Up To Open New Rebranded Alameda Location The Beginning Of June
Curry Up Now, the popular Bay Area family of restaurants, food trucks and Mortar & Pestle Bar, has acquired Tava Kitchen in a strategic move to expand. Both concepts have garnered numerous accolades and awards for their fast-casual concepts, including Nation’s Restaurant News naming Tava Kitchen a ‘Breakout Brand of 2016,’ therefore making the acquisition a fitting move for co-founders Akash Kapoor, Rana Kapoor, and Amir Hosseini.
“We started Curry Up Now in 2009 as a food truck and over the years grew to five food trucks. Meanwhile, we opened our brick-and-mortar restaurants in San Mateo, Palo Alto, San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland. While Curry Up Now has fast and fine-casual formats, as well as craft cocktail bars attached to our fine casual stores, Tava Kitchen was the first, true Indian quick service brand who figured out how to dish out amazing food in a standardized format. With this acquisition, we are confident that we will be able to combine our vision of Indian food and a fantastic guest experience to grow the Curry Up Now brand worldwide,” states CEO of Curry Up Now, Akash Kapoor.
“It’s been an incredible adventure and joy to build Tava. We started out simply as three friends who wanted to share their love of South Asian food and over the last five years, we’ve helped hundreds of thousands of people find their flavor. I think it’s incredibly fitting that we’re linking up with our friends at Curry Up Now to help scale that vision across the country. For years people have talked about Indian food being the next big thing. I really think this is the team that’s going to make that happen,” exclaims the founder of Tava Kitchen, Hasnain Zaidi.
Experts in the hospitality industry project that Indian fast-casual concepts will continue to grow in popularity, which also positions the timing of this acquisition perfectly. Curry Up Now, who has built a reputation as a pioneer in the fast-casual Indian food market, will combine their expertise with several of Tava Kitchen’s practices to standardize and simplify food processes, helping to enable seamless growth in the future. Tava Kitchen’s 1800 square foot Alameda location, which features patio dining, will be rebranded as a Curry Up Now and is set to reopen at the beginning of June. The space will showcase Curry Up Now’s signature Industrial Bollywood Pop chic interior design with a giant mural, upcycled furniture & lighting fixtures, and for the first time, a completely open food assembly line where guests can see almost all the food being made live in front of them as they order. In addition to serving guests, Curry Up Now will be using the Alameda location as it’s innovation lab to test and launch new items as well as use the store as a national training restaurant.
Curry Up Now takes traditional Indian flavors and presents them in a friendly, recognizable format, like, their fan-favorites, which include Tikka Masala Burrito, Deconstructed Samosa, Sexy Fries and Naughty Naan, along with traditional Indian Street Foods like Pani Puri, Marwari Kachori Chaat, Papdi Chaat and the founder’s favorite, Pav Bhaji & Vada Pav. Not only does the menu feature innovative dishes, but they pride themselves on offering all natural, never frozen, gluten-free curries, chutneys and sauces; cage-free eggs; local and organic produce and dairy products; and protein options that are Halal, naturally raised, antibiotic and hormone-free. Curry Up Now limits their disposal waste by using real plates and silverware versus plastic that ends up in landfills.
Another unique feature of Curry Up Now is Mortar & Pestle, which is a craft cocktail bar attached to their San Jose and San Mateo locations. The bar program, which has earned them local and regional recognition, features an eclectic menu of signature cocktails such as the Indian-inspired, Bangalore Old Fashioned which is an Indian rum blend-based Old Fashioned with house-made Garam Masala syrup; Holi Bhang which is an Organic Coconut Ghee Washed Rum & Rye, Lucknow Fennel Syrup, Lemon, Aqua Faba, Coriander Infused Orange Bitters and Crunchberry Holi Color blasts; and lastly their eponymous seasonally adjusted cocktail, the Mortar & Pestle, which is rightly served in a mortar and consists currently of Gin, Rum & Rye along with a Ras El Hanout syrup and finished with mint, cherries & bitters. They have an array of exclusive house-made tonics, craft beers, sangrias and wine is available by the glass or bottle. The founders foresee Mortar & Pestle continuing to be a part of future flagship Curry Up Now restaurants, while smaller locations will have beer, wine and sangria available on tap.
Established in 2009, Curry Up Now was conceived by Akash Kapoor and his wife Rana and ably supported by co-founder, Amir Hosseini. There are currently Curry Up Now locations in Palo Alto, San Mateo, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and four food trucks rolling under the same name. The concept has been named as one of Zagat’s ‘5 Hottest Fast-Casual Chains,’ ‘SF’s Best Indian Restaurants’ by EATER SF, and ‘100 Things To Eat Before You Die’ by 7×7.
Curry Up Now in Alameda will be located at 2640 5th St Alameda, CA 94501. The restaurant will be open 11 a.m. – 9 p.m. Sunday – Thursday and 11 a.m. – 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Additional information and menu details are available at curryupnow.com or for more updates follow Curry Up Now and Mortar & Pestle on Instagram.
