Good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking’…a baritone voice echoed across the cabin. The 7am flight from Delhi to Ranchi was delayed by 15 minutes. “Extremely sorry for the late departure,” Rajat Jaiswal warmly apologises, “but don’t worry, we will land on time.” The weather is good, the 35-year-old lets on in his balmy voice, the seat belt signs have been turned off, sit back, relax, enjoy your breakfast and some cool music. The captain goes on to play an Elvis Presley chartbuster, and takes a big bite of a burger. “Wise men say, only fools rush in…”
11am in Ranchi. Jaiswal rushes to an eatery, just a few kilometres from the Birsa Munda airport. “Welcome, Captain. What can we get for you?” a young man behind the counter of Wat-a-Burger, a burger brand with 60 outlets across 21 cities, greets him. “Aloo achari burger,” Jaiswal replies. “I had one on the flight but I want to taste it again.” The outlet stands out for its bright interiors--yellow chairs, white-black checkered floors, a bunch of fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling.
Ten minutes later, Jaiswal takes a bite of the vegetarian patty and bun loaded with spicy potato. “This is perfect,” he says with a smile, relishing the spicy taste. “The one I had in the morning was less tangy.” The pilot wants to get on a call with the cook at the Delhi outlet. The problem, Jaiswal says sternly, as he storms into the kitchen of the 800 sq ft outlet after donning a chef’s apron, needs to be fixed. “Aye, Captain,” replies the cook.
Meet Rajat Jaiswal, a high-flying pilot with over 7,000 hours of flying experience and co-founder of Noida-headquartered burger brand Wat-a-Burger. From Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh to Ranchi in Jharkhand, from Vadodara in Gujarat to Jaipur in Rajasthan, the desi burger chain has mushroomed across smaller towns and cities in 11 states over the five years since it opened its first outlet in Noida in February 2016.
Co-founded by Jaiswal and his childhood friend Farman Beig, Wat-a-Burger boasts of a sizeable presence in top cities as well: 17 outlets in Delhi, six in Gurugram, five in Hyderabad and one in Mumbai. The idea is simple. India, Jaiswal underlines, always had room for a local player, a desi burger brand which is better-placed in terms of understanding the local palate and preferences. “Remember Jughead from Archie comics?” asks Jaiswal. The guy, he points out, had the ability to consume absurdly large quantities of burgers in a single sitting without getting sick or gaining weight. “Well, that’s how we expect every Wat-a-burger fan to be,” he says.
The menu is eclectic. From butter chicken and tandoori chicken makhni burger to Indian chaat fries and aloo achari burger, there’s a burger for virtually every Indian, with fillings and ingredients picked from their regular diet. “Now who doesn’t like aachar (pickle),” says Jaiswal smiling, as he takes a swig of a kesar pista shake. Co-founder Beig opts for a paneer tikka sandwich as the duo move into the cockpit--read front counter—of the small outlet. “I don’t like business to be in auto pilot mode,” says Jaiswal, as he gazes out of the small window.
Once you put the flight in auto-pilot mode, there is little for you to do, explains Jaiswal, a pilot since 2009. During his school days in Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh, he recounts, teachers used to scold him for gazing out of the window. ‘Staring out won’t help you in making money’ was the jibe. A decade later, this is what Jaiswal ended up doing most of the time. “And I am getting paid for that,” he smiles.
What Jaiswal was not getting paid for was his spare time, something most pilots have plenty of. “It’s not 9 to 5 office work,” he says, adding that he wanted to make the most of the extra time after flight hours. His friend Beig, who returned from the UK in 2015 after finishing his business studies, was running a small IT firm in Lucknow. The duo decided to do something bold and adventurous. The ETA (estimated time of arrival) of Wat-a-Burger was around February 2016, and the flight did land on time.
But why food? The duo could have flirted with any other segment like fashion or gaming, common hobbies of the friends. Food, explains Jaiswal, is recession-proof. “There is a food for every mood,” he says. “You cut down on everything but not on food.” Now who understands the perils of recession or a slowdown better than a pilot? The first segment to feel the heat is hospitality and aviation. Having a business family background--Jaiswal’s family was in trucks and transportation—also helped in making the smart move of ditching pizzas.
The friends opted for a burger joint. The reasons were many. One, burgers are easy to make. “It’s more of an assembling job,” contends Beig. You have patties and a bun, and all one needs to do is add sauce, mayo, tomato, onion, and the like. As one goes about expanding the footprint, maintaining a consistent taste in a burger is easier than in pizzas. Two, burgers don’t need high investment in equipment. Three, burgers are easy to eat, carry and share compared to pizzas. And, last, the duo always felt that India had room for a desi burger player.