How This Houston South Asian Restaurant Gained National Prominence

Hey everyone, it's Raheel. Welcome to Food Tuesday. The weekend dinner rush at Agas Restaurant in catering is a sight to behold. 150 workers in black polos work in total unison to serve mouth-watering Indian and Pakistani dishes to almost 3,000 customers. But that wasn't always the case. What is now a nationally recognized South Asian restaurant was once struggling to survive. Owner Shokit Moradia joins the show to explain his recipe for success and the dishes you need to try ASAP. It's Tuesday, May 23rd. I'm Raheel Lonznali and here's what Houston's talking about. Shokit Moradia, welcome in to Citycast Houston. It's weird not calling you Shokit Uncle. For those you don't know, in the South Asian culture, we call everybody Uncle. I guess I had to keep it somewhat professional, right? That's okay. You can call me anything. We have tons of respect for each other. Absolutely. Welcome in to Citycast Houston. So excited to have you on before we jump in and talk about Agas Restaurant in catering. I want to know what Indo-Pak restaurant did you go to before you owned Agas? Raheel, I used to be in Los Angeles. So we moved to Texas in 2007. At that time, there were a couple of restaurants. Raheel was one of those and Subway was one of those restaurants that not very frequently, but whenever there was a wedding or you were invited, I went to those two restaurants that I can recall. Nice. I love it. Yeah, those are staples growing up in Houston. We loved going to those restaurants as well. And as part of the history of the Indo-Pak restaurant seen here in Houston, so tell me about how did you come to own Agas in the history of the restaurant? So my family, we have no restaurant experience whatsoever. So my brother and one of my cousins one day said, Hey, let's buy a restaurant. I'm like, you guys are crazy owning a restaurant. It's easy, but operating is not easy, especially have no experience. So in 2011, we took over restaurant and 2011, 2012 was a huge struggle, especially not having the restaurant background. And it was managed by my brother and one of my cousins who initially bought this restaurant. After a couple of years, we were tired of it. We wanted to get rid of it. Like, you know, this is not our cup of tea. Let's focus on what we're good at and not waste our time. But for some reason, I got involved in 2012 or 2013. And I noticed there was no process in place. Absolutely no process. And it was managed just like another typical, uh, D.C. restaurants. I don't know if people will understand D.C. restaurant, but that's Indo-POC restaurant. And then we realized that to be successful, you got to think mainstream. You got to think outside the box. And we made a lot of changes. We made changes with food consistency. We made changes with customer service. Our D.C. establishments are known to have a root customer service. If any customer service, yes, and I don't like that. My background is hospitality. And in hospitality, you've got to take care of your clients. We brought additional staff to give better customer service. You know how it was traditionally that you go to the counter, you place your order and somebody will bring it to you or you go and get it yourself. I changed all that. We made it a full service restaurant. Staff comes with technology. You know, technology is huge at Aga's. You place your order right at the table. You pay your tab at the table. Very efficient. It's easier for staff who takes orders. And also those who are in the kitchen makes it very streamlined. So a lot of those changes made Aga's what it is today. So from the moment that you stepped into the operations and implemented these changes, what was that like from that moment on how much longer did it take for the restaurant to work and actually succeed? Aga's had a bad reputation before we took over. And first, two years of operation under us was not very successful. So it was like swimming against the waves. You try harder, but then there is somebody's talking bad about you. But then people like you who had great experience and they went out and started sharing with their friends and family that, hey, I went to Aga's. It was a great experience. And even as of last month, we keep growing. It's such an incredible story that after 12 years, we're still growing. Was there one moment that changed everything because I'm with you? Like I was one of those customers that before Aga's became Aga's that it is now, I was like, oh, whatever, it's just Aga's. It's just another restaurant. Was there something that took it from being the old Aga's and made it to the mainstream Aga's that we know now? I wouldn't say that was an overnight success. It was a slow process. As people came to Aga's and they had a great experience and that keep multiplying. You know, the news spreads. When you have exceptional customer service, people will talk about it. If you have a really bad service, customer will talk about it. If you're mediocre, you're average, nobody wants to talk about you. So my staff, my family members, especially my brothers, they stepped up and made a commitment that let's give customer each person that comes to Aga's, give them memorable experience so that they keep coming back. I love that. At the time, we had 127 chairs and three servers. That's all we had. I know you probably remember and on the Friday nights or Saturday nights, we would have maximum, not even 100 customers served per day. Now somewhere between 3,000 to 4,000 customers are served on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Each day, over 3,000 people, you know that our sitting capacity with the banquet hall is over 800 people and people are still lined up to dine. So it's crazy. It's a great experience and it would be unfair for me not to mention. Sufian, he was a great addition to Aga's. That guy took it very personal to build this business. And as much of an impact I had or my brother's had, he had just as much of impact on the business. That's one of the reasons. You keep bringing up the employees specifically, guys like Sufian. And every time I walk in there, I see the same faces. It could be between months, it could be weeks, it could be a year and it seems like the same people are working. And in a time right now where restaurants are struggling to find somebody to work at restaurants, it seems like Aga's is doing a great job of keeping employees. So like, what is that about? How are you doing that? I'm offended by you calling them employees. Oh, I'm sorry. Aga's you're not an employee, you're a family member. And I make it very personal for them. I make sure that they enjoy being at Aga's. You know a lot of employers throw money at their employees hoping that they would be happy. I've been an employer for many, many years and money will take you not too far. But the way you treat them, the way you make them feel, you celebrate their success, their special days. It's what's important to me and in return, you see that they're always smiling. And Ryle, you're not the only one with this compliment. We get a lot of our guests compliment me about how wonderful the staff is. And I take great pride with that. I want to make sure that they're number one for me, not my customer. To me, my staff is number one priority for me. In return, they take care of the customers. Absolutely. And that is one of the highlights. The other highlight which I think everyone talks about is the food. Okay. So let's talk about this. Was there a major hall and major change on the menu and the way you were cooking and recipes? Or was it pretty much the same thing and you just refined it? So the chefs were the same. We hired additional chefs to bring more variety to the menu. So we have six or seven chefs at this time right now, which is tons of experience. If you take Amin's chefs, been cooking since he was 16 years old and he's 70 plus and he's still working at Aga's and he's still happy at Aga's. Jopfer by is the same story. He left his house at age of 14 and he got at his job, first job at the restaurant and he's been with Aga since we took over, even before we took over. Nor he was a professional chef in Pakistan. He brought his unique ideas to Aga's. So a little bit of everything. So which chef is responsible for the legendary go-chops? Who brought that to the menu? Because that is by far your most popular item, right? Absolutely. That was the original recipe from Chef Ali. The only people at Aga's know about the chops recipe is Chef Amin and my brother. Nobody else knows what's in coach chops. I don't even know what's in it. They won't even tell me. So they're very protective of our recipes. Yeah, and it truly shines. Like every time you're there, it's always good. And when you're serving up to 3,000 people in one night in an 800 seating room, you have to be consistent because if you're not, there's going to be more issues, right? Absolutely. Consistency and process is key to success, right? If you don't have the process, it's going to break down. One of the best compliments we get is everybody from your restaurant knows what they're supposed to do. And after having 800 people being served at one time, it's smooth, very smooth operation. So much fun. It's so awesome to see that system rolling. Okay. For a CityCasts Houston listener who's never been to Aga's, what do you recommend that they try on the menu? They have to come 365 days and try everything on the menu. Because everything is so unique, it's so authentic. Aga's is not like typical Indian Pakistani restaurants where they have three different types of curry sauce and they put a little bit of this, a little bit of that and make your dishes. Aga's, every dish is prepared from scratch. Every dish, your biryani's, your kadai's, your tikka masala's, makni, butter chicken, it's prepared from scratch. However, first thing, if anybody who's listening right now and you come to Aga's for the first time, you will be asked, what is your preference? Do you like goat? Do you like chicken? You like curry or do you like barbecue? And based on that, we will recommend that two things I recommend to everyone to try Aga's, whether you like goat or not, whether you like chicken or not, try our goat chops, try our chicken lollipops. Those are my favorite items from the menu. And chicken tikka masala, our kadai's are very unique. So there is tons of options and no, doesn't matter what you try, Raheel or your listeners, they will love it. And we guarantee it, we guarantee it. If you don't like it, you let us know, we'll replace it for you. It's no questions asked. I always recommend the Raheel plate, okay, which is you get the paneer, makni, you get white chicken kabob, the krai, and one non and rice. And that's all you need. That's a great meal. I'm like, I just consistently get that. And then I'll come on Sunday for the haloapuri brunch. Oh my gosh. That's if you go on a Sunday, you're in for a treat or on the weekend Saturday or Sunday at the brunch is so good. There's so many options. There's so many different things. I have to ask you about this. A lot of people don't know you've got the restaurant side, which is again, we talked about how massive it is. But then there's also this equally massive, if not bigger catering side. Tell me about this operation because every time I go to a wedding, Aga's is there. It doesn't matter if I'm in San Antonio, if I'm in Houston Austin, tell me about this catering operation. Right. Catering is a big deal. Catering is once in the lifetime event, right? Somebody's getting married. And that's the only opportunity Aga's has to impress them and make it memorable. So number one, to be successful in catering business, you have to have a process. It means you have to have a kitchen. You have to have staff. You have to have the variety of food. We do have that. We have a 6,000 square foot kitchen. We have tons of vehicles. We have like seven chefs and all of these guys take great pride in making each event memorable from the start to end. When you decide to make that first phone call to book Aga's, you get professional step will handle your call. The one of the best thing and most unique thing about Aga's is it's very stress free. From the time you decide to hire Aga's until the event is finished. We are involved. We will walk you through the menu process. We will do a venue site visit to make sure that everything is organized ahead of time. And on the day of my staff is fully prepared to carry out this event and make it memorable. It's the most personal to me when it comes to restaurant business because each event is very unique and shame on us if you let anyone down. That's incredible. On a busy night, let's go a Saturday night where you've got 800 people in the dining room and expecting about 2,000, 3,000 people to events. How many people are working for Aga's on a night like that? So any Friday night, Saturday night, you will find over 150 people. Just the staff. Just at the restaurant. Just at the restaurant. Then based on the size of the catering, we have a contract labor that comes in and takes care of that. So we could have over 200 employees on any single night with catering and restaurant. That is incredible. One last thing before I let you go, education has always been super important to you. And you started a scholarship fund that I want to talk about last year. Tell me about this and what kind of difference are you making through the scholarship fund? You know, you're absolutely right. You know my kids, right? They're both highly educated. They can go anywhere in the world and survive. Business can fail. You might lose your business, but your education, you will never lose. And you know this old saying that don't fish for them. Teach them how to fish. I think education is the same thing. You educate them with whatever you can support with. And not only are you going to change that person's life. You can change family life. You can change the life of that family for generations. So I think all businesses should be involved in the community. Whatever they can do, any small, large donation, scholarships, it's really important to us. And there are a lot of stories being shared with me about how much they're struggling to make this transition from graduating from high school to college. Some of us are blessed not to have that issues, but some of the families struggle. And a lot of things that we do that helps them a lot, whether it's a down payment for a car or down payment for their apartment deposits or school fees. It's really important to me. Education is so crucial to have a better life. And a while not only the education credit, we do tons of charity work, whether it's a nonprofit organization wanting to support somebody who's struggling with food. During COVID, we gave away thousands of meals, absolutely free of charge. I mean, those kinds of things, if community needs some medical support, medical help, we're always there. So I think it's important to be involved in the community because the way our community supports Agas, it would be absolutely shameful if we don't give back to the community. That's perfectly said. On that note, thank you so much for joining us. It is so good. You got to go out to Agas, order it, enjoy it. It's going to be a lot of fun. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. Let me make a promise to you and your listeners. Come to Agas. If you're not happy, there is no charge. Wow. There you go. You can't beat that promise. Thank you, Shokadako. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you for your support. You're always been a big supporter of all Agas. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Nice talking. Take care. That was owner of Agas, Shokad Moradia. You can learn more about their scholarship fund in our show notes. Before we go, Harris County is expanding their Holistic Alternative Responder Team or Heart Program, which sends unarmed public health officials instead of police to calls involving residents experiencing homelessness, residents dealing with mental health issues, and other non-emergency calls. The $2.6 million expansion will add almost 200 more miles of coverage for the program and will expand on the almost 2,200 calls they've already answered last year during the pilot phase. That will do it for today. Hey, if you have a friend who loves the food scene in the city of Houston, make sure you share this episode with us. Thank you for listening, and I hope you learned something new. It's a recorded interview. We can stop anytime. You can just say, hey, I just want to stop for a second. No. No big deal.