West Wichita convenience store owner adding an Indian food drive-through restaurant
The owner of a Wichita convenience store is about to make a tasty addition to his business.
Ahsan Tahir, who has owned the Super Express at 2849 W. 13th St. since 2017, is working on adding a concept called Biryani Express. Though he hopes to expand the concept to other locations, he’s going to start inside his convenience store and will offer food to go, including from a drive-through window.
Tahir is still working on getting his licensing, he said, but if all goes well, he hopes to start serving food by the end of the month.
The specialty at the new food business will be biryani, a popular Indian dish that’s made with rice, various meats and vegetables. Tahir said his biryani will include mild or spicy chicken, mild or spicy beef and also potatoes.
Once the business is more established, he said, he plans to add chapli kabab, which are flattened ground beef patties, and chicken 65, which is a boneless, marinated Indian chicken dish.
His chef is his mother, Shafqat Tahir, who in her native Pakistan was a well-known doctor who ran her own clinic. She also happens to be an excellent cook, her son said. She’ll prepare the food out of a commercial kitchen space Tahir is renting at Studio School at 751 George Washington Blvd.
Biryani, Tahir said, is an incredibly popular Indian dish, and even though Wichita has been home since 2017 to a restaurant called New Paradise Biryani Point, 1648 S. Rock Road, biryani is in somewhat short supply in Wichita.
“I’m kind of surprised not a lot of people are familiar with biryani here,” he said. “We’ve been giving out free samples to our customers to get them familiar with it.”
Stay tuned for updates on an opening day for Biryani Express.
This story was originally published June 13, 2022 at 2:37 PM.
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