HUNGRY.

Mahesh Raikar wants to build the “Indian McDonald’s.”
The founder of SKVP joins Dan Pope to unpack how he’s turning Indian street food into a scalable quick-service restaurant brand — without stripping away the authenticity that made the food special in the first place.
Mahesh breaks down the systems behind SKVP’s 23 sites, why a seemingly huge menu can still deliver food in around seven minutes, and how the business thinks about everything from store-level EBITDA and bottlenecks to central kitchens, location strategy and its hero product: the vada pav. They also explore SKVP’s ambition to reach 44 UK sites by March 2028 and eventually take the brand global, why Mahesh believes Indian food still has a huge untapped QSR opportunity, and the lessons he’s learned from McDonald’s, Burger King, Nando’s and other global restaurant brands.Plus: Mahesh’s journey from starting as a porter at Compass, the reality of managing stress as an entrepreneur, Bollywood and Indian culture as brand-building tools, and why SKVP is investing relentlessly in making its core product “the best in the world.”

ON THE MENU:
00:00:00 Intro
00:05:00 The Indian Burger That Could Go Global
00:11:00 Why Indian Food Needs a Western Lens
00:15:05 SKVP’s Plan for 44 UK Sites
00:18:25 How SKVP Serves Food in Seven Minutes
00:23:25 The Systems Making Indian Food Scalable
00:29:10 The Bottlenecks That Hold Businesses Back
00:34:10 Building Today for 100 Restaurants Tomorrow
00:43:00 The Numbers Restaurant Founders Must Understand
00:51:00 From Porter to Building SKVP
00:54:00 Why Authenticity Is SKVP’s Advantage
01:00:50 Every Great Brand Needs a Hero Product
01:07:10 Could Franchising Take SKVP Global?
01:10:10 What Will Actually Limit SKVP’s Growth?
01:18:40 The Hardship That Shaped Mahesh Raikar
01:24:50 Why Founders Need Macro Patience
01:30:20 Entrepreneurship Is Really Stress Management
01:40:00 Building the Best Vada Pav in the World
01:47:55 How Bollywood Builds Indian Soft Power
01:53:45 Can Delivery Help Build the Indian McDonald’s?

  
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♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 
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🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 
This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/)

📙Download HUNGRY Big Banging Reading list here 
🧾 HUNGRY survey would be so grateful if you may please fill out 

 ============================================== ♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 
============================================== 
🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 
This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/)

Riordan Maynard’s story is almost impossible to believe. He left school at 16, learned the art of selling at Foxtons and co-founded Touchbase, a mobile-phone business that grew to around 200 million. Then ego, reckless expansion, the financial crisis and a refusal to accept failure brought everything crashing down.
What followed was six years inside the American prison system, separation from his wife and five children, brutal violence and a complete mental collapse within his first six weeks.
In this extraordinarily raw conversation with Dan Pope, Riordan explains how believing he was “Midas” turned ambition into self-destruction, why hopelessness crushes the human spirit and how he rebuilt his mind by focusing only on what he could control.
He also shares hard-earned lessons on sales, differentiation, value, resilience and closing deals. Brutally honest, darkly funny and unexpectedly practical, this is a conversation about extraordinary success, catastrophic failure and rebuilding yourself after losing almost everything.

Ayra is your external front of house. An artificially intelligent communications manager that lives on your website and across your social channels, chatting and responding to customers 24/7 with warmth and personality.
She's trained on your business and built to act. Taking the reservation, holding the card, sending the reminder, recovering the lost booking. Instantly and autonomously.
click the link to learn more.

📙Download HUNGRY Big Banging Reading list here
🧾 HUNGRY survey would be so grateful if you may please fill out  

ON THE MENU:00:00:00 Intro
00:05:15 How a Wapping Flat Became a £200M Business
00:11:25 The IRS Arrives With Guns
00:17:15 How Fear of Failure Sent Him to Prison
00:21:10 The Best Business Advice He Ignored
00:24:50 His Last In-N-Out Before Prison
00:28:30 California’s “Best” Prison Was Still Hell
00:34:05 What Prison Reveals About Human Hierarchy
00:37:20 The Gang Leader Who Allegedly Killed Six
00:41:05 How He Negotiated With Prison Gangs
00:45:10 A Normal Day Inside Federal Prison
00:48:15 Two Years Locked Down During Covid
00:52:20 Why Mackerel Became Prison Currency
00:55:20 Murder, Sex and the “Boom Boom Room”
01:01:08 How Prison Destroyed His Mental Health
01:06:44 The Question That Stops a Doom Loop
01:10:10 Two Questions That Interrupt Anxiety
01:15:10 How to Build a Compelling Future
01:19:10 Grant Cardone Versus Achievable Goals
01:22:25 Why Purpose Requires Obsession
01:26:10 The Beliefs That Made Him Feel Like Scum
01:29:20 Learning to Love What You Hate
01:33:20 Why Willpower Always Fails Eventually
01:37:25 How to Destroy Limiting Beliefs
01:42:10 The Brain Training Most People Skip
01:45:35 Affirmations That Actually Reprogram Your Mind
01:50:25 The Switch Exercise That Rewrites Beliefs
01:56:40 The Sales Masterclass Begins
02:02:15 Stop Selling Benefits. Sell Outcomes
02:07:20 How to Close a Million-Pound Deal
02:10:40 The Craziest Deal He Ever Won
02:14:05 Why “No” Means You Started Wrong
02:19:05 The Prison Books That Changed Everything
 ============================================== 
♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 
============================================== 
🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 
This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/)

📙Download HUNGRY Big Banging Reading list here 
🧾 HUNGRY survey would be so grateful if you may please fill out 

 ============================================== 
♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 
============================================== 
🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 
This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/)

Matthew Jones lost everything.
His business was gone. His family had fallen apart. Alcohol had taken control, and he found himself rebuilding his life from scratch.
Today, Bread Ahead is one of the world's most celebrated bakeries, with locations across the globe, thousands of students through its bakery school, and queues stretching around Borough Market.
In this episode of Hungry, Dan Pope sits down with Matthew to unpack the journey from addiction and rock bottom to building an international bakery brand. They talk about recovery, risk, leadership, obsession, opening in New York, scaling without losing quality, and why success is never as simple as it looks from the outside.
This is a conversation about second chances, resilience, and what it really takes to build something extraordinary.

Ayra is your external front of house. An artificially intelligent communications manager that lives on your website and across your social channels, chatting and responding to customers 24/7 with warmth and personality.
She's trained on your business and built to act. Taking the reservation, holding the card, sending the reminder, recovering the lost booking. Instantly and autonomously.
click the link to learn more.

📙Download HUNGRY Big Banging Reading list here
🧾 HUNGRY survey would be so grateful if you may please fill out  

 ============================================== 
♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 
============================================== 
🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 
This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/)