Before there was a company, there were two people learning the restaurant business one shift at a time. This is how that turned into nine restaurants.
The kitchen years begin
Robert Wood Johnson, New Brunswick
Before they owned a restaurant, Amir and Sanjay spent years working in kitchens. Their restaurant and kitchen careers ran through Robert Wood Johnson in New Brunswick, New Jersey, across a stretch of time between 1989 and 2014.
Sanjay spent about 25 years there; Amir, about 15. The work started at the dish station and moved, over years, into management. Both had come through school in the United States.
About how many years Sanjay spent at Robert Wood Johnson. For Amir, about 15.
Prep line, dish station, back office
A kitchen teaches in a particular order: timing, then teamwork, then responsibility for people other than yourself.
Those years gave them the operator’s view of a restaurant: the one that sees every station, every shift and every person who keeps the doors open.
First IHOP, Bloomfield
Bloomfield, New Jersey
In 2014 they opened their first IHOP, in Bloomfield, New Jersey. The skills were the same ones they had practiced for years. The difference was that the name on the door was now their responsibility.
Second IHOP, Elizabeth
Elizabeth, New Jersey
A year later came the second location, in Elizabeth. Running two restaurants means building systems and trusting people, and that became the foundation for everything after.
IHOP restaurants operated today
From Phillipsburg to Bayonne
Today the group operates nine IHOP restaurants, from the Delaware River at Phillipsburg to the Hudson County waterfront in Bayonne.
The work is still hands-on, and the founders still measure the business by how each dining room runs on an ordinary morning.
The group’s restaurants run on what the founders learned before they owned any of them: know every station, look after the people who work the shift, and hold the same standard on a slow morning as on a busy one.
The next chapter is about applying that experience carefully, wherever it fits.