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Story has grown larger than the food alone: Raji Sankar on Choolaah’s journey
The Indian American entrepreneur reflects on leaving technology to build a restaurant brand that has taken Indian cuisine from a Cleveland suburb to campuses, healthcare institutions and communities across the country.
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Staff Reporter - Sat, 22, Aug 2026
- 14:07 EDT
- 37
Choolaah Indian BBQ / LinkedIn
For Raji Sankar, Choolaah Indian BBQ was never simply about opening restaurants. It was about changing the place Indian food occupies in American food culture.
More than a decade after she and co-founder Randhir Sethi left careers in technology to pursue that idea, Sankar is sharing the story behind the brand for the first time herself.
“As co-founder and co-CEO of Choolaah Indian BBQ, for over a decade I've let the food do the talking. This is my first time showing up here to share the story myself,” Sankar said in a post on LinkedIn.
The decision to leave technology came from a belief that Indian cuisine deserved to be more than something Americans encountered occasionally. Sankar and Sethi wanted it to have a place “at the center of American food culture.”
That vision became reality in 2014, when they opened Choolaah’s first location in a suburb of Cleveland. Their chief product officer and co-founder, Simran Sethi, joined the journey as they began testing whether their concept would resonate with a broader audience.
They did not know what to expect. Then customers started coming back.
“People who had never tried Indian food came back the next day. And the day after that,” Sankar recalled.
That response gave the founders something more valuable than early business momentum. It gave them confidence that Indian food could connect with diners who had never grown up with it.
“That became the inspiration fueling us for the last decade,” Sankar said.
From that first Cleveland location, Choolaah’s journey expanded into college campuses and healthcare institutions, as well as cities and communities the founders had once only imagined reaching.
The growth also changed the story they were telling.
What began as an effort to introduce Indian cuisine to a wider American audience became a story about community, belonging and the relationships built around food.
“The story has grown larger than the food alone can carry,” Sankar said.
For her, that means recognizing the people behind the brand, the partners, collaborators and others whose contributions helped shape Choolaah over the past decade.
“There are people, partners, and moments along the way that deserve to be celebrated out loud,” she said.
After years of letting the food speak for itself, Sankar’s decision to step forward and tell the story marks a more personal chapter in Choolaah’s evolution.
The restaurants may be the most visible part of the journey, but for Sankar, the deeper story is about what happens when people are willing to leave the familiar behind, take a chance on an idea and create space for a cuisine they believe deserves a bigger place at the table.
Discover more at New India Abroad.
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