“I walked in ... and ordered two burgers,” Pandey said of when he began thinking about purchasing the restaurant. “I wanted to see how they did it, so I sat here and watched the whole process. I took the burger home and said, ‘This can be better.’”
When he negotiated the deal with the former owners, Pandey told them he liked the concept and decided he wanted to buy it. He then streamlined the menu to just burgers, chicken and wings, and changed all the recipes.
“Every flavor you taste now, I came up with the recipes,” Pandey said.
One of the reasons Pandey was interested in buying the business was because the space was a manageable size. He said he believed the restaurant was sustainable for the first five to six months, and it would not cause him to over-extend himself.
“A few months later—bam! There’s COVID[-19],” Pandey said. “I have no job, [as] I left my consulting gig, [and] all I’m left with is this restaurant.”
The restaurant also had the inventory he purchased prelockdown, Pandey said. “I decided to give [that food] away to people who needed it,” he said. “We had 250 burgers served that day to a lot of hospital workers, firefighters [and] police [officers]. I gave away every burger.”
Pandey said many of those guests returned and helped build his business.
Pandey said, for the most part, Nest Burger is a scratch kitchen. The restaurant’s staff marinates the chicken for 24 hours, and the burgers are made from fresh ground beef. Recently, because he realized there is a large Muslim community in the area, Pandey has begun to serve only halal meat.
“I’m just a regular guy running a regular burger joint, [but] I just made it more inclusive by serving halal meat,” Pandey said. “By no means am I exclusive to a certain demographic. It’s just a regular American restaurant.”
One of Pandey’s favorite elements of owning this business is surprising first-time customers.
“I love watching people try my food,” he said. “I watch them take their first bite; they are genuinely surprised. They didn’t think it would be so great from a hole-in-the-wall place.”
Nest Burger
2540 E. Plano Parkway, Ste. 114
972-881-5272
www.nestburgers.com
Hours: Mon.-Sat. 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Sun. closed
