Istah Grill, A Revolutionary Hyderabad Food Startup By Two IITian Friends

Talking to Biz Innings, Abhinav Panyala, Co-founder of Istah shawarmas and Grills shares his success story and entrepreneurial wisdom.

At a Glance

Istah is a Hyderabad based food startup started its operations in May 2017 by two IITians Abhinav Panyala and Vasu Pasham, bootstrapped with 30 lakhs and in less than a year they made their strong presence across the city with 5 outlets and currently doing 4.5 crores turnover per year. Istah is being widely recognised as Hyderabad’s one of the favourite food stop for Sizzling Shawarmas and Mediterranean delicacies.  

Edited excerpts

Take us through your journey so far?

I graduated from IIT Madras in 2011. Having worked with Swiggy and Zefo in several leadership roles over the past 5 years, I have gained considerable knowledge and experience of Indian customers’ wants and needs. Especially in the food industry, I have noticed a strong gap in providing local delicacies – a gap between quality and price. These dishes are either served on the streets at a lower price compromising the quality or at high end restaurants with exorbitant pricing. Being from Hyderabad, I noticed the same striking gap in shawarma offerings across the city.

This spawned the idea of establishing a shawarma food brand serving premium quality shawarmas at a daily price point for everyone. So in May 2017, I and Vasu decided to establish Istah (meaning Appetite) with one outlet out of Gachibowli and 3 dishes on the menu. Since then we have expanded to 5 outlets across Hyderabad, covering all the established and upcoming neighbourhoods, offering more than 20 Mediterranean delicacies on our menu and generating more than 38 lakhs monthly revenue. Our beloved customers now associate the brand name “Istah” with impeccable quality, stunning packaging and unparalleled customer service.

Who’s Idea is this, how and when it started?

The idea to setup Istah was a result of a constant debate between me and my friend Vasu about eating the same dish as a street variety or from a restaurant. This constant exchange of views led us to establish Istah. We both decided in April 2017 to start Istah and by the start of May 2017, we were operational in Gachibowli.

How is your food different from others?

Premium taste and quality at an affordable price is our differentiation. All of our chicken based dishes are made from 100% Chicken Breast which is healthy, low in fat, low in sodium and a good source of lean protein.

Our in house sauces are made from 100% Eggless Mayonnaise – FSSAI Food Safety Guidelines for Raw Egg Products clearly states that “The raw egg products that are most commonly implicated in Salmonella food poisoning include sauces and spreads made with raw egg – e.g. mayonnaise, aioli, egg butter.”  But almost every other shawarma outlet in Hyderabad uses egg based mayonnaise which poses a clear risk to the customer.

None of our dishes contains any kind of artificial flavours or sweeteners and we use fresh ingredients and vegetables to prepare everything. We give utmost importance to kitchen cleanliness and maintenance. Our staff is well trained to follow protocol everytime to ensure quality and taste for the customer.

What inspired you to choose Shawarma business?

The striking gap in the quality of Shawarmas offered across India was what inspired us to get into Shawarma business. Coupled with the fact that we grew up in Hyderabad and biryani, shawarma and other local delicacies are a part of our life.  

Who are the key team members in your team and what responsibilities do they carry and in what positions?

We are a team of 6 people handling Sales, Marketing, Operations, Growth and Expansion. Myself and Vasu we take care of growth and investments. Kalpesh handles operations. Kranthi takes care of sales. Aditya runs our marketing campaigns. And Prem takes care of expansion.

Where and when have you started your first outlet and how is your journey so far with 5 outlets in Hyderabad?

We started our first outlet at Gachibowli in May 2017. We started off with a simple menu offering 3 dishes. Our journey since has been an exciting one with a lot of learnings and experience. With constant customer interaction, we were able to refine our dishes and also introduce several new delicacies like Sabbah, Sahaan and Hummus salads. Now we have 5 outlets and offer more than 20 dishes, serving across all the established and upcoming neighbourhoods of Hyderabad.

How many online and offline orders you serve in a day?

We currently serve more than 500 online orders and 100 offline orders every day.

What are your best selling dishes and throw some light on what goes into it?

Our best selling dishes are Special Chicken Shawarma in Rumali, Chicken Sabbah, Grilled Chicken, Hummus with Pita bread and Hummus Salads. We also offer 3 varieties of Hummus Salads (which are comparatively healthier than mayonnaise based salads) – Falafel, Egg Whites and Chicken made from either of falafel/egg whites/chicken (100% Chicken Breast), fresh hummus, jalapenos, olives, baby corn, red, green and yellow peppers.

You told your first outlet was a mess up initially, you were in losses then, still you went ahead and opened your second outlet? what was actually running in your mind then?

Our first outlet imparted us a lot of experience and empowered us with a proof of concept. Although the initial journey was a bumpy one, we learnt a great deal of things along the way which helped us in setting up a well defined growth plan and strategy.

Any plans of franchising your business model?

Not in the near future.

How much you invested in the business so far? what kind of turnovers are you doing at present?

Overall we have more than a crore worth of investment driving more than 38 lakhs monthly revenue.

You told you are losing the majority of your profit share to food apps as 95% sales happen online, how are you working out on this to increase your offline sales share and margins?

Over the last one year, we have optimised our operations and logistics to make up for the lost revenues from online orders and improved support for takeaway orders.

What are the best compliments and worst feedback you got for your food so far?

Well, I would say the best compliment we got was an audio recording of a poem from a customer, where she beautifully recited how she felt every time she had our food.

The worst feedback was regarding our switch from egg based mayonnaise to eggless mayonnaise. The switch was in fact, one of the crucial decisions we had to take to remove health risks from using raw egg based mayonnaise. It was during this phase we received a few negative feedbacks regarding the switch.

Two partners managing 5 outlets around the week from 7 am breakfast to 12 pm dinner, how are you managing your time? what drives you actually?

Well, I would like to personally thank my team for letting me and my partner not feel like we are managing 5 outlets round the week. I feel lucky to be surrounded by an extremely motivated team.

The desire to solve the problem of providing affordable premium quality delicacies at customers doorstep drives our entire team.

What’re your future plans?

To become one of the leading cloud kitchen brand networks across India.

By Chaitanya Gundluri

Chaitanya Gundluri is a Serial Entrepreneur, Business Investor, Interviewer, Passionate Marketer, Business Blogger and an Influential Sales Leader.

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