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The first Café Spice opened in July 1998 near Union Square in New York.

The company has a second Café Spice Indian Bistro location in Philadelphia.

The original concept was developed to be a middle ground between upscale, fine-dining establishments or low-end curry shops.

Although the company has expanded into express locations and ready-to-eat supermarket products, it maintains its original restaurants in New York and Philadelphia.

Chicken Tikka Masala

Mixed Tandoori Platter

Potli Samosas

Appetizers: Shrimp Masala (top left) and Ragda Patties (bottom right)

Non-Vegeterian Sampler Platter

Saloni Machi (Grilled Salmon)

Café Spice has introduced a line of fresh Indian meals created specifically for Whole Foods Market.

Premier Business Partners:

Zafar Produce

When New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority approached Indian bistro Café Spice to come up with a new concept for Grand Central terminal, new doors were opened for the restaurant. “They were inviting restaurateurs to come up with new concepts,” says Rajesh Bhardwaj, who founded the eatery in 1998. “[The MTA] didn’t want to deal with franchises; they wanted successful, Zagat-rated restaurants to come up with an express location for the terminal.”

From there, Café Spice grew to include bistro locations in Maryland, Philadelphia and New Jersey, and express locations across the country in corporate dining facilities and college campuses, Bhardwaj says. The company has teamed up with some of the country’s leading foodservice providers, such as Aramark.

It provides Indian fare for New York University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, MIT, Kent State University, American University, Delaware University and Yale Law School to name a few.

The company’s corporate dining clients include Citicorp, Goldman Sachs, The Bank of New York Mellon, J.P. Morgan, UPS, United Nations, Sprint and GlaxoSmithKlein.

The first Café Spice opened in July 1998 near Union Square, but the restaurant’s popularity extends far beyond its immediate vicinity. It has received critical acclaim from a bevy of local and national publications, including Gourmet Magazine, Washington Post, Time Out city guides and Interior Design Magazine. In 2005, Café Spice was honored with the “Hot Concept Award” by Nation’s Restaurant News.

The expansion to ready-to-eat and express restaurants didn’t come without challenges, Bhardwaj says. “Because Indian food is ethnic and requires a long time to prepare individual dishes, it was very hard to bring in chefs from India and train them,” he explains.

“So we came up with a plan to centralize all our cooking at a commissary and then send sauces and marinades and some prepared dishes to all locations. It makes food very consistent and standardized through all locations.”

Six months ago, the company commissioned a state-of-the-art 50,000-square-foot commissary in New Windsor, N.Y. It is a USDA-approved facility that makes a variety of all-natural, allergen-free Indian specialties, including Café Spice’s most popular dishes: chicken tikka masala, chicken curry, chicken vindaloo, chana masala, vegetable korma and saag paneer. “These are our most popular, but we have about 26 additional dishes that we constantly change in our cyclical menu,” Bhardwaj explains.

The partnerships with foodservice providers “give us the ability to take the food nationwide,” he continues.

“They see that it has become very easy for them to do a cuisine that otherwise would be very hard to do. It takes just half an hour to have an entire Indian line ready.”

Café Spice also is branching out to offer its food at gourmet supermarkets such as Whole Foods, Balducci’s and Fairway. Bhardwaj says his company is the leader in ready-to-eat Indian food because the products are fresh. “There are other companies that do retail frozen Indian food, but ours is all-natural, fresh, chilled and ready to eat,” he states. “A lot of our business is hot bar, and the food moves very quickly, so we supply three to four times a week. We cook fresh.”

The food is made ready to eat and only needs to be reheated, the company says. Clients can either get the food for a hot table, where customers dish the food they want, or grab-and-go items such as rice bowls and pre-packed combo meals.

These partnerships and the increasing popularity of Indian fare stand to double Café Spice’s accounts, Bhardwaj predicts. “The demand for Indian food has kicked up a lot in the past few years,” he explains, “and with all that is happening socially and politically and with companies going over to India, we felt that we would try to follow the trend.

“From five years ago to now, Indian food has changed rapidly,” he continues. “There are hundreds and thousands of people who hadn’t seen or tasted Indian food who start liking it right away. This is the future.”