Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
In the 2010, Bert Mueller stayed with his host family in Jaipur. Mueller and some of his classmates who also studied abroad brought their food to the family from their countries.
“They didn’t like it very much,” says Mueller about the food he brought from the United States. But he noticed that another classmate had the exact opposite experience.
“One of my friends was Mexican origin, and she made chips, salsa, beans and pancakes,” he says. “One day I went to her home and I saw that she made this food for her family she lived with and they loved food.”
Mueller did not really consider creating a business – his main in the college William and Mary was music and state policy – but seeing a family that never had Mexican cuisine, he really liked it.
“Something pressed in my head that maybe it was what I could do-I could bring Mexican cuisine to India,” he says.
After completing the degree, 22 years Mueller returned to India to open California Berrit, a fast -loving restaurant from Burito in southern California.
Today, 12 years after the opening of the first brick and solution, there are 103 places across the country.
“Nothing predictable”
Mueller links his decision to study abroad in India to be “contraindicated”.
“I wanted to go anywhere -something that was dramatically than in the US, and so I decided that India is a place for, for the first, I loved Indian food, and in another, people talked in English,” he says.
While some of his classmates found cultural differences from what Mueller flourished.
“Nothing predictable,” he says. “Every day is different, and so if you find a monotonous sad, if you consider it comfortable, India is the perfect place.”
Photos provided by Bertom Mueller.
After graduating in 2011, he decided to actually fulfill the vision he had during the students and create a Mexican restaurant in India.
Mueller and his enterprises are partners, two childhood members who have left the company and returned to the United States, chose Bangalore, the fourth largest city in the country, for the first place of the restaurant. It was a hub that meant that many residents traveled to the US and most likely tried Mexican or Mexican surrounding food.
Mueller estimated that it would cost $ 100,000 to open his first store, so he raised $ 250,000 from friends and family “to be careful,” he says.
The first place earned about $ 500,000 during the first year, according to the documents considered by CNBC. And this original $ 250,000 in financing was enough for Mueller to open two more stores.
Since 2012, Mueller has continued to open places in Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi. In 2024, California Burita brought a profit of $ 23 million.
“I never felt like throwing”
The success of the brand came despite some unique difficulties.
“The biggest problem was that the person we hired at the beginning to launch all our operation and help us was a very crooked man,” Mueller says.
He hired the head of the district who worked in other network restaurants.
“He was very educated,” he says. “He spoke with great English, so it was easy to communicate with him. And he was very useful. He would go to find suppliers. He would recommend sellers. It made our lives much easier because we were 22-year-old in this foreign land without knowing how to work.”
Soon, Mueller learned that the man he had hired was charged with twice as much of the products and planned to repeat California Burita.
“He would call a government official to the store and said, We did not do X, Y, Y and Z,” says Mueller. “He conspired with sellers to do everything. And then he later left and started his own Burrito restaurant, which fell.”
The blow did not hold back it off to make California Burita as successful as possible.
“My mom is a marathon, and I have such a trait,” he says. “You have to keep going until you reached the finish line. And I never felt how to throw.”
The initial Mueller plan was to stay in India for only five years, he says. But after these initial five years, he realized that it would be better if the company grew with its own ingredients.
Now in California, Burita sources of five different chicken suppliers have been planted by 500 avocados, some of which were trampled by elephants. The company grew Tomatillos in Karnatak, but “a huge amount of rain came and destroyed them all,” he says.
Putting more in the agricultural aspect of the supply network, Mueller began “thinking for decades,” he says.
And, as it is now, his stay in India feels uncertain: “I have no release date planned in my head. I love India. India feels at home and at home, you don’t think much about care.”
Want a new career that pays more, more flexible or full? Go through the new Internet Course CNBC How to change your career and be happier at work. Expert teachers will teach you strategies to successfully customize networks, refurbish your resume and confidently go into your dream career. Start today and use the bird start -up coupon for a 30% discount of $ 67 (+taxes and fees) by May 13, 2025.
Plus, Sign up for CNBC Make this newsletter To get tips and recommendations for success at work, with money and in life.
