JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
If you're hungry in Houston and decide to order delivery, you might just end up ordering from Aga's.
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Because, according to Uber Eats, this Indian Pakistani restaurant does the most delivery orders on its platform of any single-location restaurant in the world.
(SOUNDBITE OF METAL CLANKING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: The kitchen is pretty much open 24 hours, right? So they start prepping at midnight, goes on till 2 in the morning, 3 in the morning. Then the chefs will come in, and they'll start preparing the dishes for the next morning.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: What are these (ph)?
SAL MAREDIA: We have 10 chefs. We have five from Pakistan, four from India and one from Bangladesh.
SUMMERS: Sal Maredia is the CEO of Aga's. He says they serve thousands of people a day.
MAREDIA: Average is 4,200 people, if you do the 30-day average. But on the weekends, like Saturday night, over 6,000 people.
SUMMERS: That includes delivery orders, takeout and people dining in. And this restaurant is massive. It seats around 750 people.
(CROSSTALK)
DETROW: Maredia says customers especially love their lamb chops, marinated for 24 hours, and their chicken lollipops - fancy drumsticks.
MAREDIA: We just cannot get enough chicken lollipops. It's so favorite to kids, adults and everyone else.
DETROW: And, of course, the classics.
MAREDIA: Our chicken tikka masala, extremely popular. Butter chicken, very popular. Our garlic naan, we cannot - I mean, we cannot bake enough.
SUMMERS: With orders pouring in, Maredia had to come up with a faster way to get the food from the kitchen to the pickup area, which is about 100 feet away.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: OK, of course.
MAREDIA: So the first thing I did - install the conveyer system, and that made it so effortless.
SUMMERS: And Maredia's latest challenge - it's expanding the business.
MAREDIA: Houston, Dallas, Austin, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, London, Paris, Dubai - I want Aga's to be everywhere.
DETROW: But he says he won't forget his customers in Houston.
MAREDIA: If you say anything bad about Aga's in Houston, they'll fight (laughter). They'll fight with you.
DETROW: A chicken lollipop would be good right about now.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.