Need a solution for those late night munchies? Insomnia Kitchen to the rescue! If you’re in Lahore, you can have fresh, delicious meals delivered to your doorstep at any time of the night. Whether it be a Nutella crepe that you’re craving, or something more extravagant like Tarragon Chicken, Insomnia kitchen is your savior. We had a chance to sit with entrepreneur and NYU graduate, Syed Shahryar Ali Zaidi, to see how he came up with the concept, and where he plans to take it.
How did the idea come about? Who was the brain behind it?
I used to come back to Pakistan from university every four months or so for either my summer or winter break. During these holidays, a lot of time was spent with friends, stretching into the wee hours of the night. We would end up roaming the streets of Lahore aimlessly and only had a couple of places we could hit for food; McDonalds was one of them. There was no place where we could get proper fresh cooked meals to satisfy our hunger pangs at that time of the night. Ending up at McDonalds every night became monotonous after a while; there was only so much McDonalds one could have. It was around this time that the concept of Insomnia Kitchen first popped into my head, I wanted to be able to cater to the night crawlers and provide them with fresh meals. I spoke to my family about it and they were very supportive. Their support provided even further motivation but I couldn’t possibly have run the business being so far away so I decided to wait until college finished to bring this idea to life. This is how Insomnia Kitchen came into being on December 3, 2010.
I, myself, Syed Shahryar Ali Zaidi, 22, came up with this idea. I completed my schooling from Aitchison and Lacas and then went on to America to finish my higher education. I graduated from New York University with a degree in Economics and Middle Eastern Studies.
How long has it been running and what has the response been so far?
Insomnia Kitchen will be celebrating its second anniversary very soon. The response has been great. The business has been running without a proper marketing campaign for almost a year now and has strived on word of mouth and Facebook. We are planning on putting more focus on marketing and taking it up a notch very soon.
What cuisines does Insomnia Kitchen offer? What are the hot favorites on the menu?
Insomnia Kitchen has a very extensive menu, which brings together a mixture of Continental, Thai, Chinese, Italian, Japanese and Mexican cuisines. Everything is cooked as per order and from scratch; our aim being to provide the best quality meals to our customers. Mozzarella Cheese Sticks, Prawn Tempura, Mother of all Cheese Burgers, Philly Cheese Steak Panini, Tarragon Chicken, Chicken ala Kiev, Chicken Steak, Lasagne, Sesame Chicken, Nutella Crepe, Apple Crumble, Banana Bread, Iced Lemonade and Ferrero Rocher Milkshake are some of the hot favorites.
What are the long term plans? Do you plan on expanding to an eat-in at all, if even on a small scale?
Well, the plan for now is to expand the late night delivery first. Once that has consolidated, we will surely go into opening a one of a kind eat-in place.
Hunger pangs strike at night all over, any plans of moving to maybe Karachi or Islamabad?
People from both these cities have shown a keen interest, and wanted Insomnia Kitchen to be functioning in their cities as well. If things go as planned, then Insomnia Kitchen will be expanding to these cities very soon.
Are you open just at night or even during the day?
The whole concept of Insomnia Kitchen was to serve people at night. However, due to popular demand, we will be starting a lunch service as well. There was a lot of debate as to whether this would take away from the concept, but according to one of our customers, ‘One can suffer from insomnia in the afternoons too, you know. And what’s a better way to kill time than to eat some yummy food?’ This certainly helped in solving our dilemma and we have decided to go ahead with the idea.
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