Patel Brothers are the oldest & largest Indian grocery chain in the USA.
Founded in 1974, by 2 brothers - Mafat & Tulsi Patel, Patel Brothers is now valued at $140 Million (Rs 1090 Crores)
Mafat, Tulsi & Aruna Patel were born & raised in Mehsana, Gujarat. Mafat Travelled to the US in 1968 to pursue MBA from Indiana University and eventually settled in Chicago to work as an engineer.
Mafat's brother & his wife later came to USA in 1971. Mafat realized that Indian grocery was extremely expensive and scarce in Chicago and was motivated to open his own store.
In 1974, Mafat opened his first store in Chicago with the help of Tulsi & Aruna. They gradually extended to other major Indian-concentrated cities like Detroit, New York City, Houston, and Atlanta.
As of 2022, Patel Brothers have 57 superstores across America.
Recently they opened their biggest Store in Niles, where the Mayor Andrew Przybylo had come for the opening
[In pic, Mafat Patel in Shades]
"We will never forget that there were days when the cash register never opened," Aruna Patel said in an interview.
With their persistence, The Patel family now owns the biggest Indian grocery chain in the US, with 57 superstores & market valuation of $140 Mn ( Rs 1090 Crores)
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#DidYouKnow 42% of the Hotels & Motels of the USA are owned by Patels!
The market cap of this 42% is ~$40 Bn (3 lakh Crores)
The history of Patel Motel goes back to the 1940s when the British were dwindling & the US was immigrant-friendly.
Kanji Manchhu Desai was the first Gujarati hotelier in the US. He moved from the West Indies by the way of Mexico to San Francisco in the early 1920s.
In the early 1940s, Kanji was living in a residential motel called Goldfield which was run by a Japanese-American.
When the President FDR's executive orders came and forced 100,000 Japanese-American into camps due to World War 2, Kanji decided to lease from the Japanese-American owner for a couple of 100 dollars.
Even if we combine the sales of Audi + BMW + Mercedes + JLR and other luxury cars in India in 2021, it would still stand at 25-26K for the year.
China's Audi alone sells ~55k cars in a MONTH!
Our sales numbers are not even close to what China is selling in a month!
As our income grows, sales would only shoot up and there's a huge opportunity there for luxury cars. And more the sales, more will be the manufacturing hubs in India and not just the assembly.