Before he could welcome people into a restaurant of his own, Gurbachan Singh Maan spent 10 years knocking on strangers' doors.

He had arrived in Britain from Punjab in 1936, carrying a suitcase of goods to sell. Far from home, he walked London's streets day after day, earning a living and saving whatever he could. It would take him a decade to open a small restaurant.

In 1946, he finally opened ‘Punjab India Restaurant’ on Braham Street in Aldgate.

Eight decades later, his family still runs it at 80 Neal Street in Covent Garden. Now in its fourth generation, it is recognised as the oldest North Indian Punjabi restaurant in the UK.

But keeping its doors open has brought its own struggles. From financial hardship to threats of redevelopment and a global pandemic, each generation has faced challenges in carrying forward what Gurbachan started.

From door-to-door sales to a Punjabi restaurant

Back in the 1930s, opportunities for Indian migrants in Britain were limited. Peddling was one of the few trades available to them, and the work meant long, tiring days in a city that was not always welcoming.

Yet those years also helped Gurbachan understand something about the Indian community living in London. Far from their families and the places they had grown up in, people missed the simple comfort of a familiar meal.

That was the need his modest restaurant hoped to meet: a place where Indians living in London could enjoy the Punjabi food they knew from home.

When he finally opened ‘Punjab Restaurant’ in 1946, it was a modest operation on Braham Street. But demand soon grew.

As word spread through London's Indian community, particularly among people at the Indian High Commission and the city's growing population of Indian students, the small restaurant on Braham Street could no longer keep up.

So, the family relocated to 80 Neal Street in Covent Garden, an address that would become closely associated with the Punjab name for decades to come.

Four generations later, Gurbachan's own words still guide how the family talks about the business. His great-grandson Amrit Maan recalls him saying: "We rise by uplifting others."

How a grandson carried forward the family kitchen 

As Gurbachan's family grew and more relatives arrived from Punjab, the restaurant business grew with them. His sons and grandson went on to open two more restaurants, ‘New Punjab’ and ‘Sardar’, extending what had started as one man's gamble into a small family network of........

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