In the city: From driving celebrities to creating the Momo franchise, meet the man behind Suraj Lama Momos | Mumbai News

When we reached his Versova office around 6 pm on a weekday, Suraj Lama Momos was abuzz. Lama was manning the cash register while a group of youngsters, mostly from his village, were preparing orders for Swiggy and Zomato and delivering plates of steaming momos to customers waiting outside or dining upstairs. The pace of activity was so intense that it took Lama half an hour before he could excuse himself and sit down with us for a chat.

Back in time

Suraj was 14 when he left his village, Mirik, in Darjeeling, to come to Mumbai in search of better work opportunities. He worked a few odd jobs before finding a career as a driver, a profession he did for nearly a quarter of a century, ferrying actors like Shahid Kapoor and Sonakshi Sinha and working for production houses like Dharma.

“I worked with great dedication and considered the people I worked with as my own family, but sometimes I was not considered an equal. That bothered me,” he said, recalling the incident that was the final blow.

“I drove an actor to the set. There was a child who wanted to take a photo with the actor and had been waiting for a long time. I thought about helping this child, but when I told the actor about his wish, he refused. I didn’t feel well.”

Lama quit his job and even convinced his wife Vijayata, who was then working as a cook for late singer KK, to also resign, suggesting that they would do something of their own.

“Looking back, it was a big risk. We were earning around Rs 30,000 each, half of which we spent on maintaining our house and saving the rest. The gamble paid off, but it could have gone in a different direction,” he said, adding that the reason he decided to get into the restaurant business is because his wife is fabulous at it.

“I don’t tell her often, but she does,” he said, bursting into laughter before adding, “Momos, which are easily available back home, were not common in Mumbai back then, so we thought of selling momos.”

Interestingly, a few months ago, he had once asked actor Sonakshi Sinha and her family to taste his wife’s momos; they also loved them.

Determined, Lama also sold his bicycle and bought himself a bike, modified to serve as a mobile stall. As of March 2017, Vijayata was preparing about 15 plates of momos in two variants – vegetarian and non-vegetarian steamed momos – and Lama was selling them in and around the lanes of Lokhandwala, Versova and Seven Bungalows.

“In no time, people started queuing up and we started running out of supplies. So a few months later, I set up a roadside restaurant there,” he says, pointing to the space opposite his current physical store in Versova. “In fact, when I first asked the owner of our current store to rent me the space, he told me ‘aapke baski nahi hai (you won’t be able to afford it)’ and later, he himself contacted me,” he added.

The rest, as they say, is history. Today, Suraj Lama Momos has two own stores in Versova and Malad, and nearly half a dozen franchise stores across the city. He also gets enquiries from Pune, Nashik and Gujarat.

“I can’t accept them now. It is important to maintain quality. Today, we have a central kitchen in Mumbai, fully supervised by my wife, with a staff of 25, which prepares around 16,000 momos a day in different options. It is these momos, about 90 per cent cooked, that are served in every outlet, whether it is run by us or a franchise. Till I can do this in another city, I will not expand,” he said.

Go forward

What is the future of Suraj Lama Momos? “We are opening a shop in Kandivali,” he said. But what is the ultimate goal? “To go back to my village and be with my children. They have always lived there with their grandparents because my wife and I had full-time jobs. I visit them every three months, but at some point, I would like to live with them,” he added.