When Jay Patel’s lunchtime corporate crowd at Moti Cafe started winding down last year, he knew he needed to pivot. His Indian “fast food” spot, serving up the likes of vada pav, samosa chaat, and things like tacos, bowls and burritos, was grappling with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, but another type of restaurant was soaring.
“I had to do something,” he said. “I started to look at pizza sales and they were through the roof everywhere, so I thought, why not Indian pizzas?”
Patel’s approach of starting with foods people are already familiar with and adding the Indian flavors was already working well at Moti Cafe. Add that to his mission to make Indian food more accessible, pizza felt like the perfect fit.
“If someone unfamiliar with Indian food walks into a traditional Indian restaurant and sees tikka chicken masala, they probably have no idea what they’re ordering. But with this, you’re at least already there 50%, you know what pizza is . . . now it’s just figuring out what flavors you want,” Patel said.
Less than a year later, Patel started Masala Pizza, a completely virtual pizzeria that other restaurants can partner with to enhance their own revenue.
In Naperville, Patel joined forces with Sizzaly Pizza located at 1220 West Ogden Avenue.
“It’s been a good experience and definitely brings me a different clientele,” said Al Abbasi, owner of Sizzaly Pizza. “And the pizza is actually delicious and people are noticing.”
There is a relatively large contingent of South Asian people in the Naperville area, many of whom eat strictly halal meat. Masala Pizza’s chicken tikka pizza is made using halal-certified chicken which Patel provides to his partner restaurants.
Abbasi said for the Masala Pizza orders coming out of Sizzaly, Barone’s in Burr Ridge, or anywhere else, Patel also supplies the house made tikka sauce to use in place of marinara.
“We provide them with our Indian sauces, the paneer and chicken, training and recipe sheets, getting their online systems set up — the whole nine yards,” Patel explained. “Any order that comes in through our website will get directed to whichever pizza shop that’s working with us. From there, they make the order and the customer can pick it up.”
The format, while unconventional, works in both parties’ favor. Patel wanted to expand the pizza served at Moti Cafe to suburban areas that catered to a niche market of ethnic eaters without the substantial costs of a physical storefront, and with the pandemic beating down on local restaurants, Masala Pizza adds a boost to the mom-and-pops he partners with.
“It’s helped attract other people to my shop because those that order the masala pizza end up ordering other things from us too,” Abbasi added.
Without a Masala Pizza storefront, Patel relies on word-of-mouth and marketing to get traffic on the website, so when customers like Ansha Nidamanuri say the pizza “brought together the Indian flavor profiles I know to a classic dish everyone loves,” it means a whole lot.
“It’s hard for us because we don’t have a storefront, we don’t have a sign or anything to capture clientele,” Patel said. “The biggest thing is letting the public know that we’re open at all these locations and you can order directly from our website.”
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Diamond Mark, another customer of Masala Pizza and Moti Cafe, added, “if you like pizza and Indian food, this is the place for you. The sauces and spices pop.”
Patel’s planning on rolling out kiosks at some of the locations in the coming months allowing people to order Masala Pizza while at the partner restaurant.
But for now, customers can scroll through Masalapizzacompany.com and pick from signature pizza choices like samosa smash, chicken tikka, masala elote with the popular “moti sauce,” paneer tikka and a “Wad-A-Pizza,” with mint and tamarind chutney drizzled on top.
Patel is well aware that “Indian pizza” is not reinventing the wheel as there are a few existing restaurants in the Chicago suburbs that serve Indian pizza already, especially in pockets of Glendale Heights and Schaumburg. But Patel insists that his flavorful pies make Masala Pizza an under-the-radar winner in terms of innovation.
“I took a different approach and decided to work with pizza shops that are already existing,” Patel said. “Everything that’s happened, happened from Jan. 2021 onward . . . just need to keep it up, keep the momentum going.”
Masala Pizza locations in Downers Grove, Lincoln Park and Schaumburg will be opening up in just a few weeks, but current spots up and running for pick up are Moti Cafe in Chicago, Nardi’s Pizza in Addison, Sizzaly’s in Naperville and Barone’s Pizza in Burr Ridge.