If you hail from Mumbai or a Dosa lover you must have been to Prem sagar Dosa plaza Aka Dosa plaza once in your life. Well, there is an interesting story behind how actually this 30 crore food joint started. Prem Ganapathy was the man who started it .
Let’s have a look into the overall journey of Prem Ganapathy.
The Struggle
Prem Ganapathy hails from Nagalapuram in Tamil Nadu’s Tuticorin district. He was born in a poor family and had to give up his studies . He was a senior secondary pass out but due to financial crises he couldn’t pursue higher education. He quit his school and started supporting his family doing odd jobs . He had to take care his parents and seven siblings. He even headed for Chennai so that he can earn better money but there also he was getting a mere salary of Rs 250 a month that he had to send back home.
When his acquaintance robbed him
Time had come to move on and earn a better living. This was 17 year old Prem Ganapathy’s dream which he thought could be achieved with the help of his acquaintance as he was promised that he would get RS 1200 salary per month if he comes to Mumbai. Rather helping Prem Ganapathy in getting job , he robbed him Rs 200 leaving him stranded at Bandra . This moment was extremely hard for him as he didn’t tell his parents that he was leaving for Mumbai and he was robbed.
He decided to continue his struggle in Mumbai
Prem Ganapathy could have left Mumbai immediately after being robbed but he didn’t. He had faced lots of trouble in the early days working in Mumbai. Language was one of the issues . Fortunately, he got a job at a local bakery at mahim. He used to wash dishes there and he was getting a salary of Rs 150 for a month. The best thing about this job was he didn’t have to pay for the shelter as he could sleep in the bakery itself. He had done several kind jobs in various restaurants in Mumbai. At this point he managed to keep his savings for his own business.
Prem Ganapathy started his own little business.
The year was 1992, when Prem Ganapathy realised that he had enough savings to start his own little business of selling dosas and idling on handcart. He invested Rs 1,000 for buying utensils, stove and other required materials and Rs 150 for renting handcart. And finally, he managed to set up little shop on the street opposite the Vashi train station.
The expansion of business
Prem Ganapathy have always been very specific in quality and cleanliness of his Dosa shop.He also brought his brothers Murugan and Paramashivan in the city so that they can assist him in his business. They used to wear caps and clean uniform while operating his business.
Luckily, his business went well. People literally loved his sambhar and dosas . The secret of the recipe lies in his native place. The same year he earned the profit of Rs 20,000 every month. it seemed like fate was helping him as now he had a rented space at Vashi which was quite spacious that would be used for the preparation of masala and ingredients.
There is no success if you don’t encounter any challenges. Prem had to face some issues when it came to the licencing of handcart food stalls. Even their cart was seized several times by municipal corporation and he had to pay the fine to get the cart back . Soon this trouble ended when he opened his own restaurant.
Sagar Dosa Plaza
In 1997, he opened his own restaurant named Prem Sagar Dosa Plaza in Vashi. Though he had to pay the monthly rent of RS 5000 and one time deposit of Rs 50,000.
Prem was always open to new suggestions that can help his business grow . He learned how to use internet from college going students . This is how learned experimenting with its signature dishes. Later, he produced around 26 exotic varieties of Dosa . Some popular ones were paneer chilly Dosa, schezwan dosa and spring roll Dosa. 26 was just a number as they managed to surpass this figure and now they were serving more than 105 types of Dosa.
Prem Ganapathy always had a desire to have his outlet in a shopping mall. So, luckily his desires found its way to the Centre One mall , which opened in his vicinity only. The management team of the mall often visited his restaurant and one day they offered prem to have his outlet in their mall. That was the day since prem never looked back as from now he gained enough popularity among its customers. Besides they even started supplying the dosa batter along with other ingredients .
They officially come into existence when they opened their first franchise outlet at Wonder Mall in Thane, in 2003.
Now, the Sagar Dosa plaza was not limited to Mumbai . It has two outlets in Dubai, three outlets in New Zealand, and soon opening in Muscat in near future along with 15 more restaurants in India. This makes the total of 43 outlets in 11 States of India.
Prem Ganapathy is the man who started his business with a mere amount of Rs 1,000 and now he runs the Rs 30 crore company . Prem is expecting the revenue of around Rs 40 crore for this year
