The story of how I got here starts with racing a food truck across the country.
I grew up in an eclectic family mix of cultures and ethnic backgrounds. My mom is ½ Italian and ½ Hungarian. My dad was born in Burma but grew up in Pakistan. We had access to a variety of delicious food because my dad was a well-known chef in the Bay Area. My brother and I joked about opening a restaurant someday because we loved to incorporate flavors and foods into unique recipes. Our friends would beg us to cook for them because our food was so different. But, I never had a desire to be in the food industry, which is ironic because I spent two months in a food truck racing across the country.
In 2012, my brother Shaun returned from his tour in Afghanistan. Understandably, the transition back into civilian life was difficult after experiencing such trauma. My brother needed something new to direct his focus. I came up with the idea of starting a food truck business for him. At the time, I was working at a bank. I planned to finance the truck so that he could run the business.
We created a pitch video for Indiegogo, a crowdfunding site similar to Kickstarter. While our campaign missed the mark, our comedic video--I pull a Weber Grill behind my bicycle and call it my "food truck" and compete against a child's lemonade stand-- caught the eye of the casting producer for The Food Network's "The Great Food Truck Race." The producer said, "Put a team of three people together and good luck." Shaun and I called our uncle and said, "You know how you like to cook…."
Over 100 teams started the competition. We were one of the eight teams selected for the race. Putting my life on hold for an undetermined amount of time to drive a Food Truck across the country was very difficult. I didn't know if I would be out after the first week of the competition or make it all eight weeks to the finals. I was definitely in it to win it, but it was really, really hard.
Reality game shows are all about the story. The producers could care less about the competition. Initially, we were branded as "the army veteran and his family." Then, when the producers saw my strategy to compete, we were branded as "the analytic team." After a few weeks, my uncle's goofy side connected with the audience, and we became "the comic relief team."
We made it to one of two final teams. We felt like we had a winning chance because we had a huge head start going into that final weekend. We were the underdogs with integrity, and we knew the other team was going to pull ahead. It was interesting how little the "show" cared about food and about who won. For them, it was just TV. For us, it was all about delivering fantastic food and working hard.
We focused on the flavor and the quality of our menu items. Our approach was to create a variety of Indian inspired dishes with a few basic ingredients. My uncle pioneered our recipes. He originated our Chicken Tikka Wings, and I evolved it into our signature dish, the Tikka Tikka Taco.
The biggest thing I learned from this experience is simplifying recipes and streamlining the methodology. Despite coming in second place, I feel like Tikka Tikka Taco Truck still has the potential to be a successful franchise.
Life would have been great if we had won. And life is great now. My brother is a police officer and happily married with kids. My uncle is still as goofy as ever. My wife and I just bought a new house in Kirkwood, and we are expecting a baby in the fall.
And while I didn't launch a food truck franchise, I did launch a Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp branch office in Kirkwood about seven years ago with my partner Joel Farrell. At Fairway, we continue to support veterans and give back to our community. We strive daily to be "Humble, Hungry and Smart", which we learned from the book, The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni.
Today, it's mortgage loans instead of tacos. And, I'm working out of our office in Kirkwood instead of driving a kitchen-in-a-box across the country. But the strategy remains the same: Deliver a simple, efficient, and delightful experience for our clients anywhere across the county. Whether it's unwrapping a Tikka Tikka Taco, or closing on a new home loan, clients walk away with a smile on their face. I call that winning.