Aagrah’s march goes on with 14th restaurant

ONE of Yorkshire’s best-known family-run restaurant groups opens a new site in Leeds today.

Aagrah’s new restaurant and bar in the Chapel Allerton area of the city is the group’s 14th and creates 20 jobs.

It is the largest chain of restaurants serving Kashmiri cuisine in the country.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Mohammed Aslam, the youngest of three brothers behind the group, said: “We are delighted to be opening our fifth restaurant in Leeds.

“It’s a great location and we are looking forward to being an integral part of the community in Chapel Allerton.”

The Chapel Allerton site can cater for 100 covers in the restaurant and a further 50 in the bar.

It also has a large conservatory covering the front of the dining room and will use food from Aagrah’s own butchers’ unit, the firm said.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The start of business at the Harrogate Road restaurant was marked with a grand opening last night.

Two years ago Aagrah also opened a £4m restaurant, conference and banqueting centre between Leeds and Bradford at Thornbury.

The Midpoint Suite, which has an outside cooking area surrounded by a landscaped Mughal-style garden, has hosted more than 300 corporate and social events over the last year.

Aagrah opened its first restaurant in Shipley in 1977 and today the group has 380 staff, turning over more than £5m.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Mohammed Sabir started the business because he wanted to take good quality authentic Kashmiri cuisine to the masses, based on the food he had enjoyed at home in Chakswari in Kashmir.

Supported by his wife, Fazilat, the couple worked long hours to establish the business.

The oldest of 10 children, Mr Sabir said he felt a keen responsibility to provide for his family after leaving school to work as a labourer at 13.

Bringing his two younger brothers, Mohammed Aslam and Zaffar Iqbal, on board, the restaurant soon took off.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Mr Aslam has previously said the key to success is being able to reproduce home-style cooking on a commercial scale – for 2,000 customers a week or up to 7,000 if Aagrah is hosting larger events.

“My elder brother Mohammed Sabir started the restaurant in 1977 and I have been involved for 31 years along with my brother Zaffar Iqbal.

“I have always said our big advantage was that none of us had been involved in running a restaurant before and so we have had to learn on the job.

“We have introduced a lot of people from children to customers in their 70s to Indian, Pakistani and Kashmiri food and that is something we are very proud of.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I think in the early 1990s when we had restaurants in Shipley and Pudsey and moved to Garforth I could start to see the potential of the business and I have always been a risk taker – both with the business and with the menu.”

The next generation of the family is also involved in running the business.