From foodservice to product development, Chand Sahrawat has become a leader within the local hospitality sector.
Chand Sahrawat moved to New Zealand as an international student, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and English. After working briefly in retail, she decided to return to university in order to pursue a Postgraduate Diploma in Education and began teaching English at secondary schools.
Her journey into hospitality began when her husband, Sid, opened their first restaurant, Sidart. As a business owner, she wore many hats, from handling HR, accounts, finance, procurement, PR, and advertising, and she has enjoyed the variety each day brings.
In 2014, the Sahrawat’s opened Cassia, and in 2018, acquired The French Cafe.
When the pandemic hit, the Sahrawats took a pivoted approach to maintaining the business by launching Cassia at Home, the FMCG brand, which is now stocked nationally by Foodstuffs and other gourmet supermarkets.
In 2021, Sidart was sold to the restaurant’s head chef, and in 2022, the couple opened KOL, a tandoor restaurant in Ponsonby. After a flood impacted Cassia in 2023, the restaurant was relocated to Skycity, and Sahrawat took a step back from the hospitality industry to regroup.
She then took on a contract role as project manager for the Breast Cancer Foundation of New Zealand, which she said was a truly rewarding experience. After that project ended, she joined Vittoria Food and Beverage, an Australian company, where she has been helping set up their new brand showroom in Newmarket while supporting operations and marketing.
Sahrawat said just like in airline safety briefings, it is more important to put on your oxygen mask first before helping others.
“As women, we have a tendency to nurture everyone at the cost of our own wellbeing. As a mother, I often put my own needs last. In the past, this has led to burnout as I have not managed to juggle everything to a 100 percent,” she said.
“We forget that if we have a breakdown, it will mean that we aren’t able to care for those that we love the most. So make sure you prioritise your own wellbeing so you can be there for your colleagues, your partner and family.”
Sahrawat doesn’t have a mentor, instead she has various people in her life who she can lean on when need be. She believes that people never stop learning and growing, which is why it was important for her to reach out to people who can teach her the lessons she needs to learn at that point in her life.
“So I will often turn to my close friends who are other women juggling businesses, my partner Sid, my parents and sometimes even my daughter for their counsel. People who know you best know what would be the best for you.”
The industry is definitely growing up according to Sahrawat, who said it had understood that doing brutal hours for minimum wage was not sustainable. She said it had become a more kinder place that is more inclusive.
“I look up to women like my friend Leslie Hottaiux, chef and co-owner of Apero. She is not only an awesome chef cooking some very technical food, but Leslie and her partner Ismo have made a move to put their son first and close Saturdays and Sundays to match school days off. I think that it is a brave move for any restaurant to close on Saturday nights. This has shown that the industry is evolving.”
At the moment, Chand Sahrawat said there were too many hospitality venues per capita. She said everyone was fighting for the same small share of the pie. This has become even harder in the current economic climate, where wage and food costs are rising, but menu prices are not. Sahrawat said she’d like the industry to work together to redefine the models we have. Better training and retention for staff, and better margins for operators so they can create resilient businesses that are not impacted severely by economic downturns are what I am hoping will happen in the future.
“The good in humanity. I try and see the best in people, their potential and look at the positive each day and that motivates me to keep going. Very rarely do people let you down and disappoint you if you have faith in them.”
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