Mexican Restaurant Founder Finds Home in India
In 2010, as a 22-year-old exchange student staying with a host family in Jaipur, Bert Mueller made them food from America that he had grown up on. They didn’t like it much, but he noticed that another exchange student’s native food was a hit with her host family. “One of my friends was of Mexican origin and she would make chips and salsa and beans and tortillas,” Mueller told CNBC’s Make It. “One day I came over to her house and I saw she’d made this food for her family she was living with and they were loving the food.”
He was majoring in music and public policy at The College of William & Mary, but quickly recognized a business opportunity that hadn’t been exploited. “Something clicked in my head that maybe this was something I could do—I could bring Mexican-inspired cuisine to India,” he said. With investments from friends and family, he was able to raise $250,000, which enabled him to open a Mexican-inspired restaurant, California Burrito, in Bangalore in 2012. The restaurant was a big success and he soon opened two more locations in the city. Today, California Burrito has 103 locations across India and recorded $23 million in revenue last year.
Mueller had originally planned to live in India for only five years, but he has now put down his roots indefinitely. “I love India,” he said. “India feels like home to me and being home, you don’t think so much about leaving.”
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Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
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