"If a product is launched at the right time, place and purpose, the chances of failure are slim. However, in my case, I wasn’t sure how the public of Quetta would respond to the idea of Road Stoves. I decided to play the odds anyway and started small with only three items: corns, hot coffee and French fries served with a variety of sauces. Today, we are the pioneer of curly fries and the 21-inch pizza in Quetta. Within the span of 5 years, we also managed to expand nationally and are now operating in 10 branches throughout the country.
When I went to Australia to study, I started to think about doing business in Quetta as the market there is raw and has a lot of potential. I did my M.Phil in Supply Chain Management from Iqra University, Karachi and later on, got a job as a lecturer in Quetta. It would not be wrong to say that teaching others in turn taught me a lot. For instance, I went to Karachi myself to research suppliers and continued to manage my supply at the backend with the aim of providing a consistent quality.
After getting married, during outings with the family, I could never find a place that served snack o’clock time. So we started with things that we ourselves wanted to be served at a restaurant. Maybe that’s the reason that drove us to bring the best of food that we could. Road Stoves introduced french fries with sauces, shakes (oreo, nutella, etc.) as well as ice cream with toppings in Quetta and pricing was according to the target audience of students and youngsters.
Would I say that the process was a smooth ride? Absolutely not. Having to deal with issues like maintaining quality, menu standardization, staff management etc. was a huge learning curve. With every new item introduced, people had more expectation from us. It would not be an exaggeration to say that entrepreneurship is a very lonely journey but I owe it to my family, my team and my mother’s prayers who have kept me afloat.
I have experienced failures where we had to shut down our branches in Risalpur and Karachi at very initial stages. As a result of learning from our mistakes, we opened a new branch in Gujranwala which is now fully running. I do like to challenge myself so currently, I'm looking forward to extend my menu and introduce Chinese food as well in Quetta Complex Bolan which will be a new experiment for me and from thereon, there are many more to come."
.
Muhammad Hashim Khan CEO ROAD Stoves Cafe