(gentle music) - I would argue that more important than the visionary is the first believer.

So, that's the aha moment is if you can find someone that believes in your vision, then a movement begins.

But without that first believer, that person that believes in your idea, whether it's your spouse, your partner, your friend, your first customer, you're just a person with a dream.

MLK wouldn't have just been a person with a dream if he didn't find people who believe in that dream.

(screen whooshing) ♪ We're gonna take over ♪ - [Lisa] Every life has a moment, a shift that changes the way you see everything.

- You gotta hope for tomorrow.

If you don't have hope for tomorrow, it's game over.

- In those moments, people discover what remains and the courage to step forward anyway.

Tell me about the moment where you didn't succeed.

- I'm coming to realize there's room for redemption.

- (laughs) Were you prepared for what you were about to embark on?

- What comes next is not the end of the story, but the beginning.

Resilience.

What does that word mean to you today?

- Life's a blessing.

Appreciate the blessing by living it fully.

♪ Yeah, you feel it ♪ ♪ We're gonna take over ♪ (screen whooshing) (gentle upbeat music) - Hey.

Yes.

So good to see you.

- Good to see you.

Look at you.

- Yeah, yeah.

- What the heck?

- I love being here.

- Thanks.

Thanks for coming in.

- This picture just captured me as soon as I walked in.

- I know.

I know, I know.

It's just the contrast.

I mean, that blue, I've spent my whole professional life trying to recreate that color.

- That blue?

(both laughing) - I mean, you know, the splashes have been around.

You can see it up there in the pipes and- - Yeah.

- And the pinks and sort of a lot of the colors of India, you know, trying to get them in is it matters.

(screen whooshing) - Meherwan Irani is no stranger to making bold decisions and taking big steps.

So, when he and his wife made the decision to pour his passion for Indian cuisine into restaurants in North Carolina and Georgia, I still don't think he knew this pivot would lead them on the path to win a James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant.

That was in 2022.

Then, the Michelin Guide Recommendation in 2024.

I was anxious to sit down with Meherwan at his restaurant Chai Pani in Decatur, Georgia to nauch and talk about that one moment that changed everything.

I'm looking at these beautiful pictures from India.

- Yeah.

- And I see the children.

- Yes.

- What was your life like growing up in India?

- Oh, great question.

A lot like that.

- Yeah.

Oh wow.

- Almost every one of these pictures is, not almost, all of them are from my hometown.

- Wow, really?

- And they're all pictures of places that I would visit, like that vegetable market I'd go to all the time with my mom.

I grew up in a multi-generational family compound, which is not unusual to have three or four generations all living under the same roof.

An uncle and aunt with their family living in one little section, and then you with your family in one section, and then your grandparents over here.

And if the kids stay with you and then leave home, they're over here.

And the "courtyard" is the communal space where you cook, hang out, socialize, but then you can still go back to your private space.

So, I didn't grow up with just a mom and a dad.

I grew up with uncles and aunts that all felt like moms and dads.

I mean, I would get smacked up the head by an aunt, and my mom, instead of getting upset that the aunt smacked me would obviously say, "Well, good for her," 'cause she's depending on other people to watch the kids and for each other.

- A village.

A village.

- Yeah, a village.

- And then would you all eat together?

- Never had a family meal that was less than 15 people.

Everybody thinks that I grew up obviously in the kitchen learning from my mom.

But I grew up in a very patriarchal society where if my mom had a daughter, she would've been in the kitchen learning how to cook from my mom.

Sons were not allowed in the kitchen.

- Right.

- And my mom remembers.

She's like, "Yeah, you were always curious.

You'd always come in and wanna see what was going."

And everybody though it was cute that this young boy wants to know what's going on with the food.

And then, the last thing about growing up in India is we eat really well in India.

We really, the quality of food is at an incredibly high level.

There's 1.5 billion people.

So, if you're gonna be a restaurant or a street food vendor, you have to be pretty good to compete with the hundreds of others that are there.

When I arrived here and went to my first Indian restaurant, I had this moment of going like, "This is not what I grew up eating."

- Ah.

- And then the more Indian restaurants I went to in America, the more I realized there's something weird happening here.

We're a very limited slice of Indian cuisine.

- Yeah.

- I mean, imagine if every Italian restaurant in America only did spaghetti and meatballs like red sauce.

- Aah.

- That's it.

- Gotcha.

Or just pizza.

That's all you ever knew of Italian food.

- Gotcha.

- Right?

But we all know now there was way more than that.

- Right.

- And with Indian food though, it was stuck even though other cuisines of other cultures were becoming more robust and evolving, whether it was Chinese or Japanese or Mexican, or Thai or Vietnamese.

But Indian food, still the same thing.

And right when I got here, I remember just constantly thinking about like, why is this?

Why is this?

Why is it sociologically speaking Indian food's stuck in this little narrow band of cuisine?

But now, thank God it's exploded.

- Wow.

- And I would argue modestly- - Yeah.

- That we played a role in that explosion of Indian cuisine.

- What made you wanna come to this country and what was that process like for you?

- In my hometown was an ashram of a spiritual master who had passed away in the '60s.

But in the late '60s and early '70s, a lot of the Western world was going to India looking for mysticism.

The Beatles went to India and followed Maharishi, and there was a lot of that happening coming out of the hippie movement of the '60s.

So, my grandmother opened up her home as a B&B, if you will.

Now, it'd be called a B&B.

For these Westerners to come, Americans to come and stay there while they visited this ashram.

So, I grew up not just with my family around the table, but with folks from England or folks from America.

So, I always had this fascination with all things American from a kid.

And people wonder why I don't have an Indian accent.

- Yeah.

- Because I, from a very young age grew up hearing an American accent.

- Okay.

- So, it was very easy for me to code switch when I got here.

I mean, I can still talk like this when I go home and all my friends, (Lisa laughs) you know?

It does come out like- - Yes.

- My wife when I'm on the phone with my mom, she'll say, "You suddenly switched back sounding like you're from India."

(palms smacking) But when I'm with you, I'm as comfortable having sort of a neutral American accent.

So, I was always fascinated with all things American.

- Uh-huh.

- I grew up listening to American rock and roll.

- Oh.

- Watching American movies 'cause these Westerners would come and bring- - Yeah.

- Cassette tapes.

- Right.

- And movies and VHS.

And so, I just had this fascination with all things America.

And I was pretty studious, so I got accepted to an MBA program in Columbia, South Carolina.

- Nice.

- And that was my first place that I landed in America.

I remember when my mom first came to visit, she wanted to cook me a home cooked Indian meal.

I had to take her to the Piggly Wiggly for shopping.

- What is this?

(both laughing) - But she's a remarkable woman, a remarkable cook.

She found everything she needed.

- She managed it.

(laughs) - She managed it.

And was able to cook a home cook meal for me.

- [Lisa] I don't know about this American stuff.

Right.

- Until today I argue, like, people think cooking Indian food is all about these exotic spices and this, that, and the other.

I'm like, if you're at my home and you open my fridge, you wouldn't tell that I'm Indian.

Everything in there looks like I could be from any part of the country 'cause it's still vegetables and proteins and meats.

- Right.

Yeah.

- It's just about how you cook it in this- - You can whip up that flair.

Yeah.

- How you whip up the flair, right?

So yeah, so I came here to get my MBA and then moved to the West Coast, which is where I met my wife Molly, and we ended up getting married and settled there.

(bright upbeat music) - Street food.

Why is street food so near and dear to you?

And why was it so important to bring it here and bring it to life here?

- India, great question.

And this is important to talk about.

Because India is not one country.

- Mhm.

- Well, it is, but it isn't.

India would have been like Europe with 50 different nation states, each with their own culture, people, food, language, currency, gods.

But because of colonialism, it all got lumped together in one country.

- Wow.

- But when you get there, you'll realize like, "Oh wow, the food and the people of this state are completely different from the food and people of the other state."

I would argue that the food of the state of Kerala is more different than the food of Gujarat than French is from Italian or Spanish is from Greek.

They're even more distinct.

If you had to pick the one category of food that truly represents all of India, it's street food.

- Street food?

- Yeah, because that doesn't belong to any one community or one ethnic group, or you know?

It is essentially the most democratic food of India.

- Wow.

- Millionaire or a beggar, prince or pauper, everybody loves and enjoys street food and it's accessible to everybody.

- So, if you were to define street food in a few words, you would say?

- I would say that it's snacky and it's textured, and explosive in flavor because it's a quick hit experience.

- Okay.

- I mean, most street food is that way.

A taco is the same thing.

It just explodes with flavor and it's small like a slice of pizza.

- Okay.

- A hot dog.

- Okay, okay, okay.

- It's meant to punch you.

- It's meant to wake you up a little bit.

- I get it.

- You don't eat it every day.

You don't eat it at home.

- Right.

- But when you go out and get a snack on the street, you kinda wanna get that like, "Ooh, I just had this- - Wow.

- "Party in my mouth."

- I love that.

You take it for granted.

Street food, you just say street food, but- - No!

And- - You just gave it life.

Yeah.

- And also, it has to appeal to everybody.

So, you're in a country, you're in a city like Bombay where you have Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Jews.

Everybody's got their own dietary restrictions.

Well, you gotta make a food that everybody's gonna love and enjoy.

So, it's really got to be tasty, delicious, and kind of, yeah, appeal to everybody.

So, I argue that the best cuisine of India is a street food because that's the one where the vendors work the hardest- - Wow.

- To make sure it's delicious.

- Love it.

- 'Cause you can go to a restaurant- - Yeah.

- And they'll just like, "Oh, whatever."

But you go eat on the street and you're like, "Oh yeah, this is the real deal."

(gentle upbeat music) Street food is, it's so immersive and you're actually on the street and it's communal because you're standing next to people.

- And you're first generation immigrant here- - Yes.

- In the States.

Why was it so important to bring that to Decatur, to Atlanta.

- Right.

- And to so many other restaurants that you- - Right, well, it was really important for me for, if I was gonna open an Indian restaurant, for it to do two things.

A, to be transportive where I wanted to take you to the streets of India.

So, that's where the decor and the lighting and sort of the way we've set the restaurant up.

But it was also to feel like we belong in that community.

That it's always been there.

So, when Chai Pani, our Asheville restaurant, made the list of the most essential Southern restaurants, that was one of my proudest moments because an Indian restaurant was considered an essential Southern restaurant.

- Southern restaurant.

Yeah.

- And if you think about it, because they weren't just saying that the cuisine has anything to do with it, it's that Southern hospitality.

- Wow.

- The warmth.

- Wow.

- That expectation that you're never a stranger when you come to somebody's home.

We were trying to embody that through the restaurant.

So yeah, it's important to me to not just take you somewhere, but also to make you feel like, "But this makes sense that we're here."

And that made me so proud that we, even though we are a Indian street food restaurant, we're still considered an essential part of the community.

(gentle upbeat music) Yeah, as you can see, it's sort of a semi-open kitchen.

There used to be doors here.

- Okay.

- And I took them off because I wanted the diners to see what's going on here.

- Wow.

- And for everybody here to experience what's going on outside.

- Nice.

- I mean, it's a little busy and it's a tight kitchen, but this is sort of the setup.

All of the magic happens in the prep.

So as you can see, hours and hours of knife work- - Okay.

- To get all of the fresh ingredients ready.

And then when the restaurant begins, it's a lot of assembly and what they call a quick fire.

Remember that little puffy crunchy thing- - Yeah.

- I was talking about?

Well, yeah.

Let me put a glove on.

Let me show you.

(gentle upbeat music) - Now, you hear a lot of the Indian street food is spicy.

Is that true?

- That's again, a big misunderstanding about Indian food.

- [Lisa] Okay.

- The chili pepper is not native to India and it only arrived in India around the 15, 1600s.

- Wow.

- Bought by Europeans.

- Okay.

- So this idea that Indian food was inherently spicy, it's actually a very new thing by Indian historical standards.

- Okay.

- Only in the last 500 years have we been eating chili peppers.

So for thousands of years, our cuisine didn't have it.

- (laughs) Wow.

Wow.

- And as you go through India, depending on where the chili pepper took hold, it's spicy, and then in other places it's not.

- Yeah.

- So street food, depending on where you're eating it, it's gonna be spicy or not spicy.

- [Lisa] And the basis of street food is that it's gotta be fresh.

- It's gotta be fresh.

- Okay.

- It's gotta be made right in front of you.

- Okay.

- It's not prepared and you gotta eat it quickly.

- Okay.

- 'Cause the minute it's put on the plate, it's starting to collapse.

- Wow.

- Or lose its crunch or lose its flavor or get too soggy.

It's serious business.

- Yeah.

- You gotta eat quickly.

(gentle lively music) - This wasn't always your path.

- No.

Lord, no.

- You started a real, you were a realtor in the real estate business.

- Oh, one of many occupations.

- Yeah.

- Before I was a realtor, I was a luxury car salesperson.

I did some computer tech work for a little while.

I even sold jewelry- - Okay.

- When I first arrived from India.

- Okay.

- But the common theme in all that is sort of an entrepreneurial approach.

I never had a 9 to 5.

- Right.

- I think it comes naturally to immigrants when they come to America.

And it's one of the things about America that I feel like really needs to be appreciated more and more, that why do so many immigrants wanna come here and why do so many of them start their businesses?

It's one of the few places in the world that's conducive to doing that.

There's an ease of coming here.

It's almost like this country was built for somebody to come here and start a business.

You can't say that, India is hard to do that.

Many countries are very difficult to do that.

But it's like the DNA of this country is such that if you wanna be an entrepreneur and start a small business, it's the easiest place that I've ever experienced to do that.

- So, would you say it allowed you to dream?

- Exactly.

I mean, yeah, as cliched as it sounds, the American dream isn't the house or the picket fence, and the two-car garage.

The American dream is that if you have a vision, nobody's standing in the way saying, "Uh-uh."

- Right.

- No you know, no.

I mean, at least I'm saying America today.

- Right.

- I know it's taken a long time to get to this place.

- When did you have that aha moment?

That, "Okay, I really wanna start my first restaurant."

- Again, it just seems like one of these legends that we love perpetuating that there's this aha moment, you know?

From Eureka to today.

For me, an aha moment is actually always the moment that's just right in front of me.

Every one of those moments- - I like that.

- Is that moment in which you can have an insight and understanding.

- I like that.

- They don't come sequentially always.

Sometimes you gotta look for them and hunt for them.

It happened for me in 2009 when The Great Recession happened and the real estate development company I was working with was in the verge of bankruptcy.

And Molly and I were driving, my wife and I were driving back from Myrtle Beach where her family is, and we were having one of those conversations that you typically have in a long drive.

What are we gonna do now?

- Wow.

- And I kinda sort of being a hustler said, "You know, I'll figure it out.

Maybe real estate's out.

There's always the auto industry.

I was in that for 15 years.

I'm a hustler.

I'll figure it out.

I'll find a job.

I will provide for this family."

- Right.

- And Molly said, "Well, if you didn't have to worry about providing for us and could do anything you wanted to do, what would it be?"

- That's a great wife, you know that.

- Yeah.

- That's a great wife.

- And I said, "You know, I..." Let's say that again.

That's a great wife.

To the cameras.

Where are we?

(both laughing) No, it was truly remarkable.

What she said next was the most remarkable thing.

What she said was, "Look, I'm worried that because of the environment and situation we're in, you're gonna do the safe thing."

She goes, "Actually, the time to not do the safe thing is now because what do you have to lose?"

- What do you have to lose?

- It's a lot harder to take a risk when everything's going well.

If your job's going well and you're making your car payment, you're making your home payment, it's kinda like really difficult to say, "Well, let me throw all that away and try this new thing."

But when you feel like there's nothing to lose to a certain degree, and that insight sort of was the trigger for me to start thinking, "All right, if I really did want to do what I loved, what would it be?"

And then it took a little bit longer, a month or two before I sat up in bed one night and looked at Molly and said, "I've had this idea percolating for a long time of how Indian cuisine needs to be represented in America, and I think I wanna open an Indian street food restaurant."

And then she said, "Well, forget everything I said."

(both laughing) - Look where you are today.

- She said, "That's the craziest thing I've ever heard.

You're out of your mind.

What do we know about restaurants or food or any of these things?"

But I mean, that was more sort of a, like, that instinct you have when something's completely unfamiliar to go, "Whoa, whoa, slow down a minute."

But when I walked her through my thinking, that's when she leaned in and said, "Tell me more."

And then we sat up all night and talked about this restaurant.

(gentle upbeat music) All right.

- Is this like a break for you, like?

- [Meherwan] (indistinct) ping pong.

(Lisa laughs) It's a sport.

- It's a sport.

- [Meherwan] Most people don't think it's a sport.

- Yeah, it's a sport to you.

- But it's a sport to me.

So, it's like pick up basketball.

- Wow.

Wow.

- Except it's a pick-up ping pong.

You know when you go in a pool hall and somebody comes with their own billiard cue?

This should make you nervous.

- I know nothing.

I used to play when I was in grade school, when I was in grade school as recreation.

- Okay, so you know the basic rules.

- I know the basic rules.

- Got it.

Got it.

- Just don't hit the net.

(both laughing) - Get it over the net and it should be fun.

- Get it over the net.

Yeah.

- I mean, well, growing up in India, and it's a huge sport in India, China, Japan, Korea.

And I really think it's like we don't have the wide open spaces like you do in America for basketball- - Wow.

- Or baseball to pick up.

- Okay.

- But ping pong tables.

Small, nice, compact.

- Yeah.

- There's lots of outdoor table tennis tables.

Also, it's table tennis if you really wanna be- - Uh-huh.

Yeah, yeah.

- On the inside - But you were almost a pro?

- No, not quite a pro.

I played collegiate level.

I guess the equivalent would be division one.

- Yeah.

- I played for the state championships.

- Yeah.

- And then I came to the US and stopped playing for years.

And then about six or seven years ago, picked it back up again.

I'm a little rusty.

It's been a couple years.

- But you have your own paddle.

That says a lot.

(both laughing) You have your own paddle.

- I promise I don't hustle people.

This is not how I pay for the buttered chicken.

(both laughing) Yeah, there's a little bit of strategy.

It's stress relief and it's fun.

It really is a fun sport.

And it's something you can play at any age.

So, it's not unusual at all to see 70-year-olds, 80-year-olds playing ping pong and getting that activity and their exercise without hurting themselves.

- All right.

Well, I'm gonna try this with you.

- We have a guy at our club that shows up with an oxygen tank behind him.

- And he still plays?

- And he still plays ping pong.

We try not to make him run around too much, but he's still playing ping pong.

So, a friendly bet, maybe?

- [Lisa] (laughs) I gotta get it over the net.

- Yeah, just pop it over the net.

- Let's see, I'ma go first.

- You make it sound real easy.

- We'll go super slow.

- I remember these days.

(ping pong ball clicking) - Look at you go.

Excellent.

- Oh, I tried to get fancy and it didn't make it.

Okay.

Here we go.

(ping pong ball clicking) - Actually, stay close to the table.

- Okay.

- Most people have a tendency to serve further and further back.

And if you stay close to the table, yeah, so you'll have more control.

You're doing great.

- Whoa!

- Look at you go.

- What?

(ping pong ball clicking) - Wow.

Okay, this brings back memories.

The rec center in Phoenix, Arizona during the summers.

This is all we used to do is play ping pong.

We used to do that round-the-robin kinda thing.

- There we go.

- Go around the table.

- [Meherwan] And look at you put a little speed on this thing.

- Oh my gosh.

- Put a little English on it as they say.

(Lisa laughing) Getting some back spin.

Somebody's getting their ping pong on.

Ooh, some angles.

- A little bit fancy.

(laughs) Got a little bit- - Some angles.

- Some deep shots.

- Whoa!

- I'm impressed.

(Lisa laughs) One of the fun things about table tennis is it's also a nice social mixer in a sense.

- Yeah.

- You get to meet people.

- Back to that community - thing.

- Yeah, and so you're constantly switching tables and playing with new players.

And that way you get to meet people and this thing.

So actually, I'm gonna switch you over here.

- So, a switch?

(bright playful music) Okay.

Flatter me.

Did you guys used to do the round-robin kinda thing?

- Yeah.

- When you go around the table?

- Oh yeah.

- Can we try it?

- You want to try that?

- King of the Mountain?

- Is that what's called?

King of the Mountain?

- Is that the King Mountain?

- Do you know how to do it?

Okay.

Stand over there.

And we have to go around the table.

- With every bounce, with every bounce, it's your- - You gotta hit it.

- So the minute I hit it, I'll move over and then you come back.

- You gotta hit the next one.

- I'll take it up here.

So, why don't you start?

- Yeah.

- And I'll come in.

- All right.

- This is what we used to do.

This is how I used to spend my summers playing this.

- So, he's gonna serve it to you.

- Okay.

- And you're gonna hit it.

- And then you gotta run over and get ready to hit here.

- Okay.

- There you go.

- Okay.

You go ahead.

- You call it King of the Mountain.

(bright playful music) (ping pong ball clicking) - Woohohoho.

- You got it?

- Aw!

- Ah!

(players laughing) Wooh!

We used to really be out of breath with that one.

- Oh, that's nice.

- Yeah.

- Wanna go again?

- King of the Mountain.

- Let's do it one more time.

All right.

- Okay.

- Here, you come over there and I'll return the ball and you gotta run right up, yeah.

Go, go, go.

- It's yours.

(giggles) It's yours!

(laughs) Wooh!

Okay.

- Oh that was- - That's what we call fun.

That's what we call fun.

- That'll get your heartbeat up.

(bright playful music) - What is your advice to other people who are afraid to take that leap to capitalize on that aha moment?

- The emphasis is always on the founder of a business.

The visionary, right?

We talk about this a lot in business.

The person that had the entrepreneurial dream and that moment in which they decided to go forward and seize the moment.

I would argue that more important than the visionary is the first believer.

- [Lisa] Wow.

- So, that's the aha moment is if you can find someone that believes in your vision, then you start this movement.

A movement begins.

But without that first believer, that person that believes in your idea, whether it's your spouse, your partner, your friend, your first customer, you're just a person with a dream.

MLK would have just been a person with a dream if he didn't find people who believe in that dream.

And for me, that first person besides Molly, but in a sense, I think we both have that dream together, was this gentleman, Isaac Clay, who's now a partner in the business and is one of my closest and dearest friends.

He was the first person to say, "You're opening a restaurant?

I believe in you.

I wanna come help you do this."

And that's what it took to then take the next step and find the courage to take the next step.

So, I'd say for anybody that's looking for that moment, it's like make sure that you have somebody that believes in what you do 'cause that can then start the movement.

And that person can have other people join them and then join them and join them.

So, there's a story of a guy dancing on the beach and, well, it's not a story.

There's a video on YouTube of that somebody's filming on probably a grainy iPhone from back in the days of this person dancing on a beach or in a park.

And he just got some crazy hippie-looking guy just flailing.

And then somebody must have been inspired because somebody jumps up from their blanket, and then a third person jumps in.

And next thing you know, the dam breaks and everybody jumps up and is driving wildly.

And it went from one crazy person dancing by themselves to suddenly this joyous moment.

So, I'm saying like without your first believer, you're just the crazy person dancing by yourself.

But the minute somebody joins you, now you've started a movement.

It's again, very cliche.

You gotta put in the work.

And we did, but there's always those moments where the universe decides to just open a door, whether it was the James Beard Award or whether it was the landlord giving a young couple, myself, my wife that had never had no experience in the restaurant business, a space to open our first restaurant, trusting us that we would actually be successful.

You need those moments.

But again, it goes back to what I was first saying, but you have to be looking for those moments.

You have to put yourself out there, be vulnerable, be okay with someone dashing your dreams to the ground.

And I think often we're so scared that this dream that we have that somebody else will dash it to pieces.

- Yeah.

- That we don't have the vulnerability to put it out there.

- Yeah.

- People say courage.

And I say, "Well, it's more just being okay with being hurt."

Luck happens when you're willing to be unlucky.

(bright music) - [Lisa] I found Meherwan's story truly inspiring.

He simply trusted his vision, leaned on the unwavering support of his wife, and put his faith in people.

He surrounded himself with people he trusted and created a solid team.

And subsequently, a new path leading to success.

I think deep down, it's something we all want.

He at least sparked a fire in me.

Now, smelling all the rich flavors of Indian cuisine while we chatted didn't hurt either.

But I think the major takeaway from our conversation is that it's never too late to switch gears and dream.

You might find others who will dream with you and help you conquer.

(gentle bright music) (tense dramatic music) - [Presenter] W-A-B-E.

(soft music)