Tahir Kakar and his business partner Pankaj Parmar plan to open their first Eggs Up Grill in October in Raleigh, with even bigger aspirations down the road.
Incubation for the idea began almost two years ago, Kakar says. It was around November 2022 when Kakar’s wife, Farida, asked him to go out with her for breakfast at an Eggs Up Grill near their home. It was his first visit to the eatery, and he remembers he had a lot on his mind.
Kakar owned a dozen dry cleaners and laundromats in the Raleigh and Knightdale area that were going under. First, the pandemic stifled social activities and then came the work-from-home movement, he says. More casual dress in workplaces had already put a wrinkle in the desire for starched shirts.
“Sales were not taking care of the mortgages,” he says of his dry cleaners. His wife could tell he was troubled, he says, and she suggested maybe he consider something like Eggs Up Grill.
The food was good, the service excellent, the atmosphere cheery, he says. Her suggestion got him thinking even though omelets, pancakes and bacon were not part of his business experience.
“It’s a big jump,” he says now, but he didn’t see the dry cleaning business making a comeback. He now owns one dry cleaning operation and three laundromats. “I’m an entrepreneur. I had to go in a different route.”
Kakar left the restaurant that morning full but hungry for more information about the Spartanburg, South Carolina, breakfast, brunch and lunch chain that began more than 25 years ago on The Palmetto State coast at Pawleys Island. He researched Eggs Up Grill for several months, he says, learning he did not need restaurant experience to own a franchise.
Parmar, an N.C. State University alum and his business partner for two decades, has owned convenience stores, gas stations, dry cleaners and hotels in the area for more 41 years.
Kakar says attending a franchise meeting made him more comfortable with the concept of the breakfast, brunch and lunch spot that opens at 6 a.m. and closes at 2 p.m. each day. In February 2023, he and Parmur signed on.
About $1.5 million has already been spent on renovating the first restaurant to be located at 6820 Davis Circle, the location of one of Kakar’s former dry cleaners. The first restaurant was supposed to open in early 2024, but renovations took longer than expected. He estimates he spent $300,000 on equipment and the kitchen alone. He has signed a lease on a north Raleigh property where he plans to open a second restaurant toward the end of the year. That building had been occupied by a gym that caters to children, he says.
Eggs Up Grill estimates an initial investment of at least $750,000 to start a restaurant, with minimum net worth of $500,000 and liquidity of $150,000, according to its franchise information. Kakar says Eggs Up Grill has given him a system that he believes will make it “easy” for him to run a restaurant. “I’m a hands-on person. I’m going to go to at least one of the stores everyday,” he says. He followed that practice with his dry cleaners and laundromats.
“I’m very excited for it. I’m full of energy and I’m just ready to open one already,” he says. “Being an entrepreneur, nothing is impossible for me,” says Kakar, who moved from Afghanistan to North Carolina in 2001, where he already had friends.
Each store will require 45 to 50 employees depending on the size. “I’m happy to be doing something to create jobs,” he says.
There are currently 81 Egg Up Grill restaurants across the southeast and Texas. Thirteen are in North Carolina, with five more in the state under construction. The chain reports it has 100 more restaurants under development.