Around Town: How Rs 20 from his guru helped Mohammed Yaseen Shaikh build Bademiya, now a 79-year-old SoBo kebab landmark satiating Mumbai’s late-night hunger

“It died suddenly,” recalled Mohammed Zahir-ul-haq Shaikh, 63, second among Yaseen’s five sons. “My father would say there were days when he didn’t have food for two days. He’d pick up a bidi from the road, light it, take a few puffs, and leave it to satiate his craving.”

A devout follower of Hazrat Fida Mohammed Adam Chisti, Yaseen held on to his faith and kept going to his guru for his seva without any complaints.

“Someone told my father’s situation to his guru. He asked him, ‘What do you know?’ My father said, ‘Butchery and seekh kebabs.’ The guru took out Rs 20 and told him to start something,” Zahir said.

With those Rs 20, Yaseen bought spices, mutton, and a sigri, and set up a small roadside stall behind the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Colaba. Some days were good, some weren’t, until a Navy man approached him: his boss wanted kebabs for a party onboard a ship. “My father went, cooked, and everyone loved it. That’s how Navy men became his first loyal customers,” Zahir recalled.

Living in a tiny 10×10 kholi (one-room home) on Mohammad Ali Road, Yaseen would spend afternoons marinating meat, then cycle to Colaba and set up his ‘sigri’. “He was a one-man army. He would cook, clean, sweep the spot, wash dishes, do everything,” Zahir said. Staff were hired only after 1967.

Founder Mohammed Yaseen Shaikh learnt to make seekh kebabs as a young boy in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh.Express photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee

How ‘Bademiya’ was born

His moniker, now synonymous with Mumbai kebabs, also came from his guru, who told him to keep a beard. When he did, people began calling him ‘Bademiya’. One person said it, another heard it, and soon customers were saying, ‘Bademiya, kebab laga do (please get me a plate of kebab).’ It stuck, first as a nickname, then as the name of the stall,” Zahir said.

Famous patrons and the licence story

Among Yaseen’s regulars were politician Rafiq Zakaria and his wife, journalist-editor Fatima Zakaria. “One day, former president Zakir Husain sahib (President of India, 1967–69) was at their home. Ali Yavar Jung, then governor of Maharashtra, was also there. Rafiq sahib called my father to make kebabs. They loved it. Ali sahib invited him to cook at the governor’s house,” Zahir recalled.

But one night, while Yaseen was cooking at the governor’s residence, the municipal staff confiscated his ‘sigri’ at Colaba because he didn’t have a licence. Hearing this the next afternoon, he went back to the governor.

“When my father explained, the governor called the municipal commissioner and told him to issue a licence. The commissioner said the rules didn’t allow it because my father was considered a hawker. The governor told him to find a solution. In 1973, they issued a special-case licence,” shared Zahir, who joined the business in 1975 at the age of 12, along with his older brother Mazhar. “Humne yahan jhaddu lagayi hai (we have swept the road here),” he said, adding that Bademiya trained them hard.

Over the years, Bademiya’s kebabs have been savoured by who’s who, be it cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar, actors Kapil Sharma, Kartik Aryan, Tamannaah Bhatia, Vicky Kaushal, and Aditya Roy Kapur, comedian Zakir Khan, among many others. “The West Indies’ cricket team used to love us. They would stay at Taj and come over at night for our kebabs,” he recalled.

At Bademiyan, servers often turn car bonnets into makeshift tables using a plastic bottle. Express photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee

The vegetarian counter — and the expansion

In the late 1990s, they introduced a vegetarian counter. “Groups would come — mostly non-vegetarians, but one or two vegetarians. The vegetarian person would say he’ll just eat roti with chutney. That made me unhappy, so I started aloo and paneer tikka,” said Zahir.

A separate counter was added soon after an elderly woman reprimanded him for cooking veg and non-veg on the same grill, saying he defiled her faith. “I apologised and promised a fix by the next day. We created a small vegetarian section from the little space we had next door.”

Over time, Bademiya expanded to match customer demand and the family’s growth. In 2005, they opened a 1,500-sq-ft dining space opposite the stall. In 2011, they added an outlet at Horniman Circle, Kala Ghoda (currently under renovation). Two years later came an air-conditioned family dining room in Colaba, and in 2021, a restaurant in Bandra.

From a single item, the menu has grown to nearly 100, including Chinese dishes added due to customer demand.

What began with mutton seekh kebab now spans over 100 dishes, from kebabs, biryanis, gravies to a wide vegetarian menu. Express photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee

“Initially, we only sold mutton kebabs. But we catered for films — at Raj Kapoor’s home for Bobby’s success party and at Feroz Khan’s home for Dharmatma. One evening, the leftover chicken brought to the stall from Dharmatma’s party (1975) sold out instantly. Two customers fought over the last piece. I promised more chicken the following day. Again sold out,” he recalled, adding that that’s how they added it to the menu. “When Bademiyaji heard about it, he scolded me,” he laughed. “That night, when I showed him the hisab, he pulled me up. But when I explained the demand, he allowed it. We were terrified of him. He’d hit us with his chappal (slippers), and that chappal is our blessing today.”

The next generation and the future

Today, eight members of the third generation, all hospitality graduates, are involved. Running a family-owned business isn’t simple, Zahir said, but their father had a clear vision.

“He built each of us a separate home while he was alive. He said, ‘Live where you want after me, but the business will stay one’. We all live separately, but business decisions are taken together, and profits go into the parent company.”

The next plan: expansion to Andheri and Juhu, and possibly abroad. “Maybe the UK or Dubai, where Indian food is appreciated,” shared Zahir’s younger son, Saad Shaikh.

Bademiyan began as a roadside stall behind the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Colaba. Express photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee

The secret sauce

“The main thing is the meat. We all know butchery. We handpick it ourselves. If you can’t identify good meat, you can’t run this business,” Zahir said. “Our kebabs are never heavy because we remove all the fat.”

The marinade is another guarded legacy. “My father taught his secret garam masala to only me. The ingredients aren’t hidden, but I’m the one who mixes them,” he said. When asked who would inherit the recipe, he laughed: “All of them.”