(upbeat digital music) (digital screen buzzing) - [Uttam] Street food's a great equalizer.

- It's a basic thing that everybody needs for survival.

But on the other side, it's an expression of culture.

Food is a way people show love.

Food is a way that you show your emotions, that we want to showcase Indian culture in a authentic manner to people.

But I think in addition to that, the reason why we started is we were trying to find a way to mix both of our backgrounds and both of our expertise together.

And the social impact side is extremely important.

We're immigrants coming to a country where we didn't have, I mean, Uttam had his parents, but he was living alone.

I didn't have my parents or my family here.

So it was a way that we grew closer was we could cook for each other.

We could express ourselves the things that we were missing back home.

(digital screen buzzing) Oh wow.

(upbeat music) So we met in undergrad, back in India in 2006.

- Five.

- Five.

He texted me saying, hey, let's stay in touch.

And we just started messaging each other after that, and never looked back.

- I was working and she was still in college.

She said she would bake something for me, and I said I would make her some roast chicken.

And so I took over roast chicken to her house and it was the first time I met her parents.

That's kind of the basis for our relationship in a lot of ways is just like talking about food.

I mean, since then, we've always cooked for each other.

And then it evolved to cooking for other people.

It evolved to growing to love and miss Indian food a lot more.

And then it grew to doing pop-up markets in Seattle.

(upbeat rhythmic music) This is Spice Waala.

We focus on authentic Indian street food, but this is what we grew up eating.

- We have snacks or charts.

If I translated, it would be just like you're licking your finger.

We constantly got questions of, oh but why don't you have chicken tikka masala?

Or, oh why don't you have rice?

The country is so diverse.

It's unfortunate that at least in the US, the tendency is to box people.

And say, okay, this is how I can make sense of this country, or this is how I can make sense of these people.

And you're boxed based on specific categories that you fill.

We want to showcase Indian culture in a authentic manner to people.

But I think in addition to that, the reason why we started is we were trying to find a way to mix both of our backgrounds and both of our expertise together.

And the social impact side is extremely important.

Our community program is called Bhojan.

We started partnering with community lunch down in Capitol Hill, and then Mary's Place after that, again in Capitol Hill as well.

And so every week we provide them with hundred meals.

- We've served 12,500 meals so far to date.

If you look at the community systems in India, usually at the places of worship in India; whether it's a Sikh temple, or it's a Hindu temple or anything, there's usually free food available for anyone that comes in.

And that food is some of the most nutritious and the most delicious food that we've ever had.

And so that was important for us, as we were doing this program is to evoke some of those memories.

- Everybody getting the food that they need, that is culturally appropriate, that is something that fulfills you physically, mentally, and emotionally, for me would be food justice.

I'm a professor of social work at Seattle University.

There, I have been looking at food justice as a primary area of my research.

My background as a social worker, and I do my research on food justice was something that was very important for me to incorporate in the business as well.

There were 40 million people across the US that were already not getting access to food.

But because of unemployment, because of reduction in paychecks, their situation has worsened because now housing has to be taken care of, or they've lost their jobs.

Here you go Trace.

- Thanks so much.

- Enjoy.

- Have a good one.

- So we try to serve very affordable value food, fresh, good quality.

You can get a meal in our restaurant for about $10.

- In times of panic, in times of crisis, when you have this brain shut down time, what you always tend to go back to, is behaviors that you have built into your system.

For the restaurant also, we found ourselves when we were scrambling, when we were in crisis, was what is the thing that will hold us?

(upbeat rhythmic music) - [Uttam] Yeah, today we opened our second Spice Waala location in Ballard.

It's a really, really big step for us and we've like two babies now.

- [Aakanksha] Okay, even if we're crazy, stupid to think about a second location, at least there are people supporting us.

- Yeah.

- And at least like there's some kind of excitement about our food.

And that's what we're trying to do is get people excited about the type of food show, the diversity of flavors, and try to do it the right way.

- [Uttam] In cut off, what we're accomplishing together, the footprint that we're leaving hopefully on Seattle, and just the impact that we're having in the community.

- Have a great day.

- All right.