Why a Pakistani restaurant is not good business in US?

Seriously this goes beyond the first thought of the rivalry between the two countries and trust me so far from the sub-continent we don’t really care as long as the skin is brown (I am in fact starting to feel for my Mexican brothers). Ask anyone who has experienced the ghost biryani or a stuffed naan in a Pakistani-Indian restaurant and he can almost swear by the mouth watering taste. I am in fact a great fan of all the Pakistani restaurants and yet wonder "Why is it that most of the Pakistani restaurants I have been to look deserted?"

First thing that came to my mind was that compared to some of the not so good restaurant, I found these restaurant were located in far-off, obscure locations. Could this be the reason - and this leads us straight to understanding of the Causality - Think of this in business perspective - is the location a factor or a result… or is it just another Spiral reasoning? I soon figured out that for a restaurant to exist you need a customer base - a large loyal regular customer base and if you don’t have that you better go to a place where you can survive even on a very small even ir-regular customer base - in other words cut down on the fixed costs as much as possible. Although I agree location is a factor... that alone would not help and thus Location has little to do for the Business here - it is more of a result than a cause.

A simple way to look at this would be to understand the sub-continent population in the US - A majority of which are Sikhs (would not eat in a Pakistani restaurant because of the way meat is cut), Gujratis (mostly vegetarians), South-Indian (a different league altogether) and Bengalis (who can not do away with their love for fish :)). So that leaves with a very small population base that patronizes these restaurants. Even this population is bounded while traveling with a person from the above-mentioned communities. So we get the mathematics in place now. What stop from Americans - well the spices and people who recommend - Think about it, why would I go to an Italian restaurant when no Italian is talking about it and on top of that they serve me food which is bland. A spiral reasoning again!

Thinking on these lines, compare this to a Indian fast food chain kind of a thing - Yeah Indian Fast Food. All you need to run this is some punjabi Chats, dhokla and paav bhazi, idli, vada and some variations of dosas. Add a normal $5 thali or a $8 buffet to it and you have the shop in business. How often will people turn up - as long as you have a weekly menu - I guess they would come. Keep the drink like "Chai" on a low and add some more snacks like Bhatoora and Samosa to fill your counter. I am also tempted to keep some indian style hookas to add that little touch… How about this for a business plan! Oh BTW, name it anything but Shalimaar :)