Butter chicken is back on the menu after a restaurant’s switch to meat-free falls short

Restaurateur Priya Guru was at a crossroads earlier this year. She had grown increasingly concerned about animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and ethical sourcing. A vegetarian herself — as is her partner, chef Ashni “Baba” Kumar — she felt that she had no choice: Meat and seafood had to come off the menu at Guru’s Indian Cuisine, which they opened nine years ago in Newtown, Bucks County.

Customers pushed back against the vegetarian menu — hard. Guru received emails accusing the restaurant of “forcing your beliefs on us by not selling butter chicken,” she said. Revenue dropped 85% from April to July. Guru said that 5% of customers ate from the restaurant almost five times a week to support it, but “then there were those 95% who said, ‘We’re not coming back unless you have chicken.’”

At the time, Guru, 46, and Kumar, 52, had returned from a trip to her native Indian state of Gujarat as part of a long process of adopting two young sisters and bringing them to the United States.

The delays and red tape, coupled with the sinking of their business, were overwhelming. “I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’” Guru said. “This must be karma.”

During a family conference, Guru’s nephew, Samarth Joshi, 28, stepped forward. He had been a dentist doing community health work in Canada, but aspired to run his own business. “I would rather be working 12 hours for myself and making $100 rather than making $120 working eight hours for somebody else,” he said. He also is an omnivore who said he doesn’t mind eating veggie “let’s say, three or four days a week.”

“I told her, ‘Let me just step in so you can keep your ethics,” Joshi said. Last month, Guru’s brought back its meat dishes menu under Joshi’s ownership, and business is improving, he said.

Joshi agreed to donate a portion of the restaurant’s profits to Guru’s Guardian Angels, a nonprofit group the couple launched last year that is dedicated to rescuing and sheltering stray animals around the world.

Guru is still helping to manage the restaurant as she trains Joshi on operating a restaurant and running a bar, while Kumar will remain chef for the short term.

Weeks after the takeover, customers are still ordering vegetarian dishes, but the bestsellers are once again the meat-centered staples: butter chicken, chicken tikka masala, and chicken biryani. Pinot grigio and pinot noir are the wines of choice, while Sharabi mango lassi is the top cocktail.

Joshi said he has already learned one lesson: “I don’t have time for myself anymore. But I did choose this path.”