What started as an escape from ‘naukri’ is now one of the most famous Maharashtrian fast food chains in the city, also called the ‘McDonald’s of Pune’, Joshi Wadewale. The story goes like this — Shailesh Joshi and his wife Vasundhara had decided early on, when they were sweethearts in college, to be entrepreneurs.
“That we didn’t want to do naukri, was certain. After marriage, it was my wife’s idea to start a wada pav centre,” recalls Shailesh. But the wada pav dream was preceded by a stint in running a Xerox joint. “At the Xerox outlet we started keeping food items like samosa, misal, lassi and more, for there were many offices around,” says Vasundhara who cooked these snacks herself, until 1989, when they switched to wada pav.