Three is the magic number for Kal Pant.
Pant and fellow co-owners of Spice Room last month purchased an Arvada property that will become the Indian restaurant’s third location.
“Somebody told me a long time ago don’t do more than three, three is ideal,” Pant said. “That stuck with me.”
Pant — along with executive chef Ashok Joshi, chef Chhabi Pokharel and manager Raj Nyaupane — paid $2.09 million for the 5,725-square-foot building at 7355 Ralston Road in Arvada.
The building was previously home to Steuben’s, which closed in 2021 after five years but still operates in Denver’s Uptown neighborhood. Josh Wolkon of the Secret Sauce restaurant group bought the property in 2015 for $1.4 million.
While he’s been looking for his lucky third location since 2021, Pant said he wasn’t originally interested in Arvada. In fact, when NAI Shames Makovsky’s Levi Noe, his real estate broker, told him the space was available, he wasn’t sure it was the right fit.
Pant said Wolkon was originally trying to lease the space out but, crucially, agreed to sell it to Pant.
“If I’m going to throw money, I’d rather throw it so it comes back to me,” Pant said. “I’m just making somebody else rich. So I said from now on we’re going to buy every one of them.”
Pant leases the original Spice Room space in Berkeley at 3157 W. 38th Ave., but bought the real estate at 3100 E. Colfax Ave. in 2022 for his second location.
He still has seven years left on his lease at the Berkeley spot. When that’s up, he said, he’ll buy that space or a new one nearby because he likes having a presence in the neighborhood.
“It’s a straight line – Colfax to 38th to Arvada,” he said.
Pant said he anticipates opening the Arvada restaurant in the next month or two. He’s investing $200,000 of Spice Room profits into minor cosmetic changes and updates. The new location will be similar to the other two, but Pant said he plans on adding more South Indian food to the menu.
Before opening Spice Room in 2018, Pant said he worked in computers and then ventured into the restaurant industry. For 15 years he worked at places such as TGI Fridays and Applebee’s before landing a manager position at an Indian restaurant where he fell in love with the cuisine.
“There’s so many variations of food you can find in Indian food,” he said. “Curiosity got me learning more and more about the history, what I liked eating.”
Pant started mixing spices together, creating menus based on what he liked to eat and decided to take a chance and open his own restaurant. To this day, Pant still buys raw spice ingredients from India and mixes them himself in the East Colfax kitchen.
“Why don’t I do this for myself?” Pant said he asked himself. “I can help myself instead of living paycheck to paycheck. We’re going to have to scrape through it. And we started with 38th and the hard work is paying off, little by little.”
This story was reported by our partner BusinessDen.
