By Jawahar Malhotra
KATY, TX: Kaushal Patel has been in the desi grocery business for many years and has developed a keen sense of what items the public wants, how to display them and price them competitively. So when he took over the old store on Mason Road, he changed its name to Tirupati Balaji, gave it a facelift, added a mini-kitchen for hot-to-go snacks and stocked it with a huge variety of items … and the formula worked!
Kaushal is from Baroda, Gujarat and was the manager of the Desi Brothers grocery store in far south Highway 6 until the store changed hands and he went to Chicago in 2024 to manage another store. But his heart was in Houston and the warm weather brought him back.
Now celebrating the store’s first anniversary, Kaushal and his wife Priyanka are planning for the Holiday season and a year-end Diwali sale with unique items “not found elsewhere,” grins Kaushal. To that, add the smiling service and getting to know your customer, one at a time, the old fashioned-way that keeps them coming back!
Tirupati Balaji Grocers is located at 949 S. Mason Rd, Katy, TX 77450. 281-578-7812
