Sadia’s Kitchen: Shawarma pioneer in Chattogram
The restaurant has made chicken shawarma popular with people in the port city over the last seven years
Sadia's Kitchen takes orders for 3,000 chicken shawarmas a day. Their unique shawarma with cheese, crust, chicken, and salad, attracts thousands to their outlets in Chattogram city, making shawarma popular with people in the port city over the last seven years. People of all ages gather at Sadia's Kitchen outlets for their delicious shawarmas and also order it on various popular food apps.
Besides shawarma, their chicken chap, grilled chicken, burgers, khichuri, and biryani are also popular. They serve 56 items which also include kebab, nan-parata, masala and curry, salad, drinks, desserts and more.
Rayhenul Ferdaus and his wife Sadia launched their restaurant in 2013 with a mission to provide fresh food to customers at a reasonable price.
Rayhenul did his masters from Chattogram University in 1993 and from 1998 to 2001, he worked at a Popeyes chain shop in Dubai. Ever since, he grew a keen interest in the restaurant business.
Returning from Dubai, he hired chefs from Dhaka and brought them to Chattogram to start his own restaurant.
Now there are seven outlets of Sadia's Kitchen in different places across Chattogram city, including Chakbazar, Jamalkhan, Agrabad, and the GEC intersection. More than 200 employees work at these outlets.
"We have been trying to keep growing our business continuously ever since we started. Our main goal is to ensure clean food for all kinds of people at affordable prices. We do not make what we do not eat ourselves. We eat our restaurant's foods at home every day so we can make our customers get the flavour of homemade food in Sadia's Kitchen. We try to strike a balance between quality and price," said Rayhenul Ferdaus, CEO of Sadia's Kitchen.
"The challenge of a restaurant business is to move forward with the staff at an even pace where there is a lack of educated manpower in this sector. As such, it is difficult to run the business according to plan, but we are still trying to do our best," he added.
Sadia's Kitchen sells around 3,000 shawarmas every day. For this, they need a lot of chickens and they source their chicken from different upazilas in Chattogram. They get their chickens one day before using they are cooked up as food. They source healthy chickens for their shawarmas.
The restaurant opened a new branch in the Jamalkhan area of the city recently which started drawing customers as soon as it was launched.
Sanjida Akhter and her two daughters who came to eat chicken shawarma at the Jamalkhan branch of Sadia's Kitchen said, "The food is quite tasty. My daughters like the food here and I also like it. I come here from time to time when I get a chance on holidays for their tasty food."
Nusrat Shahnaz Haque, administrative officer at a private university, said, "I have tried to make shawarma at home a number of times but it just doesn't taste like Sadia's Kitchen! The meat here is well cooked and it's so much more tasty here!"
"The mayonnaise at Sadia's Kitchen is exceptional, which gives their food a unique taste," she added.