How This Young Entrepreneur Built a Fast-Growing Graze Craze Franchise

By the time many of his classmates were deciding on majors, Bhanji had already worked in three very different foodservice operations, learning everything from dishwashing and grill cooking to food safety and customer service. Those experiences convinced him he wanted to own a restaurant. What he didn’t know was which path would get him there.

That search eventually led him to Graze Craze, the charcuterie franchise where he signed a franchise agreement during his senior year of high school and, after two years of planning, opened a location in Arlington, Virginia, at age 20. Today, the business has grown enough that Bhanji has signed for a second territory in Washington, D.C.

His restaurant education began long before his first paycheck.

“My food experience began way before the commercial aspect, and I just grew up in the kitchen,” Bhanji says. “I have a story where I was cutting an orange when I was just a few years old and I cut off part of my finger. Those experiences help you learn knife skills and safety.”

His first restaurant job came at a neighborhood pool snack shack, where teenagers handled nearly every responsibility. He worked the register, washed dishes, cooked burgers and chicken tenders, and stayed late for closing shifts.

Later, Bhanji joined Nando’s, where he rotated through nearly every position in the restaurant.

“I started as a food runner, worked my way up to cashier, front of house, and then I did dishwashing, prep cook. I did grill cook, expediter,” he says. “Learning a lot about people has helped me tremendously, especially in this industry. Learning that everyone has a different motivator, everyone has a different level of support that they need, and every relationship is different and unique.”

A stint at The Cheesecake Factory rounded out his education. Working in a scratch kitchen exposed him to a much larger operation, where he learned steak temperatures, food preparation, and what it takes to produce hundreds of menu items every day.

“It was really interesting because I had three different levels of operations,” Bhanji says. “Those experiences really just helped me learn about the kitchen, food safety, learn about people and different journeys and different motivators.”

Even with that experience, entrepreneurship wasn’t an obvious destination.

Bhanji says he felt disconnected from the traditional college path that many of his classmates planned to follow. School never captured his attention the way work did. During high school, he often logged more than 40 hours a week in restaurants because he enjoyed earning money and seeing tangible results from his effort.

“I knew that I felt a lot of pressure,” he says. “Everyone around me was talking about college and what they wanted to do, and they had that sense of relief that they knew what they were going to do. I never really felt that.”

As he explored career options, Bhanji researched a variety of franchise concepts, including home services and technology businesses. Restaurant franchising appealed to him because it aligned with the experience he had already built.

Graze Craze stood out for another reason.

Unlike a full-service restaurant, the concept offered a simpler operating model without fryers or an expansive kitchen. That lowered the investment and allowed Bhanji to lean on his restaurant background without taking on the complexity of a much larger operation.

“I saw Graze Craze and I saw that it wasn’t a full-service kitchen,” he says. “It was food service. It’s what I’ve done. I was able to leverage my kitchen experience and then focus more on the managing, the growing, and the business side of it.”

The investment, however, proved larger than he initially expected.

After presenting the opportunity to his parents, they decided to become business partners. For Bhanji, the cost was comparable to attending a four-year university, except the classroom would be a business he owned.

“To me it was one or the other,” he says. “This path was going to be more fruitful. It just made sense to invest this in a business.”

Opening the restaurant took two years.

The first year focused almost entirely on finding real estate. Bhanji searched multiple markets before working with a commercial broker who directed him toward the Arlington location.

The second year introduced an entirely different education.

Architects. Contractors. Permitting. Construction bids. Mechanical drawings. County approvals. Unexpected expenses.

“Nothing is as it seems, nothing is perfect, and you’re just going to have to work it and make it happen,” Bhanji says. “That’s one big thing about business and entrepreneurship. You’ve got to make it happen.”

He opened Graze Craze on March 6, 2024.

One challenge quickly replaced another.

Generating demand.

“I remember the first week I was so worried,” Bhanji says. “No orders. It was daunting.”

He credits Graze Craze’s national brand recognition for providing an early foundation, but says long-term growth came from refining the customer experience and staying flexible.

That has included custom grazing tables tailored to different cultural celebrations, seven-day availability for orders, investment in digital marketing, partnerships with local business improvement districts, and a willingness to adapt when customers request something new.

“We don’t like to say no,” he says. “We’ve done Indian grazing tables, different ethnicity grazing tables that you wouldn’t have seen anywhere just because that’s what the customer has seen and they want to try it out.”

Attention to detail extends into daily operations.

Bhanji recalls one occasion when his mother arrived to help but wore open-toed shoes.

“I told her, no, you cannot work,” he says. “It’s not food safe. It’s dangerous.”

Instead of making an exception, he reassigned her to administrative work and kept kitchen standards intact.

The discipline appears to be paying off.

After what Bhanji describes as an average first year, sales climbed more than 450 percent during the second year. The business is on pace to double sales again this year, and a second Graze Craze territory is already in development across the Potomac River.

For young entrepreneurs considering franchising, Bhanji doesn’t pretend the work is easy.

“I would say it’s not for the faint of heart,” he says. “You’re going to run into days where you want to quit, you want to leave, but you can’t, you have to show up.”

His advice reaches past business.

“I would say don’t focus on money,” Bhanji says. “The money will come. Focus on growth, fitness, and love, and everything else should fall into place.”