For part of his studies abroad to India in 2010, Bert Muller remained with a host family in Jaipur. Mueller and some of his colleagues who were studying abroad also brought their families from their countries of origin.
“They didn’t like it much,” says Muller about the food he brought from the United States. But he noticed another colleague who has exactly opposite experience.
He says: “He was one of my friends of Mexican origin and she would make chips, SASA, beans and tortilla,” he says. “One day I came to her home and saw that she made this food for her family, who was living with her and they loved food.”
Muller did not really think about starting a business – his specialization at William and Mary was music and public policy – but the vision of a family did not enjoy the Mexican cuisine very much.
“Something in my head has been clicked that this may have been something I can do-I can bring the Mexican-inspired food to India,” he says.
After completing his testimony, Muller, 22, returned to India to open California Borito, a Borito Restaurant in Southern California Highway.
Today, 12 years after the opening of the first bricks and shells, there are 103 sites throughout the country.
“Nothing can be predicted.”
Muller attributes his decision to study abroad in India to being “contradictory”.
He says: “I wanted to go to a place that was radically different from the United States, so I decided that India was the place that should be granted, first, I love Indian and second food, people spoke English,” he says.
While some of his classmates found cultural differences outside the escape, Muller flourished.
He says, “Nothing can be predicted.” “Every day is different, so if you find a boring monotony, if you find boring for rest, India is an ideal place.”
Photo Brett Muller.
After graduating in 2011, he decided to implement the vision he would have caused during the first university stage and started a Mexican restaurant in India.
Muller and his business partners, two children’s friends who have left the company since then and returned to the United States, and chose Bangalore, the fourth largest city in the country, for the first site of the restaurant. Being an information technology center means that many population traveled to the United States, and they may have tried Mexican or Mexican food.
Muller estimated that he would cost $ 100,000 to open his first store, so he raised $ 250,000 from friends and family “to be careful”, he says.
The first site got about $ 500,000 during the first year, according to the documents reviewed by CNBC Make. This ended up with $ 250,000 in financing enough to muller to open two other stores.
Since 2012, Muller has continued to open sites in Chennai, Haydar Abad and Delhi. In 2024, California Borrito made $ 23 million in revenue.
“I never felt resignation.”
The brand’s success came despite some unique difficulties.
“The biggest challenge was that the person we rented at first to operate our entire operation and our help was a very twisted individual,” says Muller.
The director of the area, who worked in other chain restaurants, rented.
“He was well educated,” he says. “He spoke to the great English, so it was easy to communicate with. It was very useful. He was leading us to find the sellers. He recommended the sellers. He made our lives much easier because we were 22 years in this foreign land without knowing how to work.”
Mueller soon discovered that the man who rented him was receiving suppliers doubled the cost of products and had plans to repeat Borito in California.
“He was inviting government officials to the store and saying, we were not doing X, Y and Z,” Muller says. “He colluded with the sellers to do things. Then he later went out and started his Borito restaurant, which failed.”
The setback did not deter him from making California Borito as successful as possible.
He says: “My mother is a marathon runner, and I have that feature inside me.” “You have to continue until you get to the finish line. I never felt resignation.”
He says that Muller’s original plan is to stay only in India for five years. But after those first five years, he realized that it would be better for the company to grow its own components.
Now the sources of borrito in California from five different chicken suppliers and planted 500 avocado trees, some of which were refuted by the elephants. The company has grown tomatoes in the state of Karnataka, but “a huge amount of rain came and wiped it all.”
Investing in the agricultural side of the supply chain has started “thinking for decades.”
Currently, his stay in India feels an unspecified time: “I have no plan to go out in my mind. I love India. India feels like a home to me and you are at home, you are not thinking much about leaving.”
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