30 November,2025 08:02 AM IST | Mumbai | Nasrin Modak Siddiqi
Spinach Corn Toast
For Mumbai, a sandwich is not just a street snack; it is a great equaliser - you'll find office-goers, students, and cabbies alike, queuing up for the same bite. It's a memory, a routine, a taste signalling comfort, reliability, and childhood flavours that never changed.
For many NRIs, visiting Sandwizzaa near Santacruz station is on their to-do list. It means familiarity in a chaotic city - a taste you can count on, even if everything around has shifted.
As the suburbs' beloved sandwich shop approaches its 40th year in 2026, we caught up with second-generation custodian Pankaj Sharma, who looks back at a journey started by his father, Omprakash and his brothers, Mukesh, Ramendra and Surendra, shaped by chance encounters and quiet determination.
Interestingly, the legacy didn't begin with sandwiches. Long before Sandwizzaa, his father, uncles and grandfather ran a paan shop at the very spot where the outlet stands today. They worked hard, built trust, yet something felt incomplete - the product didn't carry the dignity they desired.
Then, one monsoon afternoon in 1986, destiny intervened. Stuck outside a busy Udupi restaurant in town where he had gone to get stock for their paan shop, Omprakash Sharma noticed a sandwich cart overflowing with customers. That spark travelled home with him. Within months - with family recipes and borrowed encouragement, they started Swastik Sandwiches, serving just three or four classics  - fresh vegetables, toasted bread, and melted cheese. One day, a customer asked for a sandwich topped with potato, like the aloo masala packed for train journeys. Pankaj's mother, Sumitra gave it some thought and came up with a recipe that night. The next day, they introduced the Aloo Toast - still a bestseller, still unchanged, still Mumbai on a plate.
"In 1999-2000, we introduced grilled sandwiches," Pankaj recalls the quiet shift that redefined the menu. "Then came another turning point around 2005-06, as Indians got a taste of mayonnaise with McDonald's entry into the market, We were one of the first in Mumbai to create a strictly vegetarian mayo sandwich. It took off instantly. More innovations followed. By 2008, Spinach Corn and Chilli Garlic Toast, found mostly in five-star restaurants, joined the lineup. It instantly became a bestseller, and remains one today," he adds.
In 2008, when the family attempted to trademark the name, legal complications arose. So they rechristened it Sandwizzaa, while the company remained Swastik Food Mart Pvt. Ltd. The new name brought clarity, distinctiveness - and a fresh chapter.
Pankaj admits that location has played a role in the brand's success too. "Santacruz, a wedding-shopping hub, drew families and NRIs from across the city. Word travelled - this is where you get Mumbai's best sandwich," shares Pankaj.
Today, they have 26 sandwiches, tested and tweaked before earning a place on the menu. However, it strikes a rare balance, rooted in tradition, yet open to experimentation, without gimmicks or trend-chasing. "We never thought about it as filling a market gap. We had one mission - freshness and the best possible quality, every single day," says Pankaj. That meant decisions many thought were foolish. For instance, Omprakash insisted on using Amul butter, even though most others chose cheaper variants. Suppliers warned they wouldn't survive. But the family didn't budge. "My brothers and I only wanted to give our customers the best," recalls Omprakash for who, quality wasn't just a philosophy, it was a ritual. Since the first day, every vegetable has been handpicked at dawn. No contractors, no shortcuts. Just to explain scale - back then, they bought two to three kilos of tomatoes a day. Today, they source 300-400 kilos a day - still selected by their staff at 3 a.m. Frozen ingredients are a no-go. Nothing is pre-made. Everything is fresh.
While they don't bake their own bread, from early on, the family realised that a sandwich is only as good as its base, so they worked with a single vendor to develop a customised recipe. "The thickness of the bread matters. Grilled sandwiches need a precise 9 mm slice for even toasting, while raw sandwiches require 12 mm to hold layers of vegetables without collapsing. During staff training, they are taught to butter the bread and smearing chutney for a few days, because it requires deft handling," says Pankaj who strongly believes their brand is built on consistency and culture. "In four, we've watched trends like Italian, Korean BBQ, boba tea, everything come and go. After the pandemic, India's Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) scene shifted into PSR (Partial Service Restaurants). Indian customers want comfort food, quality and freshness and they don't mind waiting five to 10 minutes for it."
Sandwizzaa posted Rs 43 crore in revenue last year, within a steady annual range of Rs 53-60 crore, and has maintained strong growth - 31.56 per cent in FY 2024-25, 48.31 per cent in 2023-24, and 51.40 per cent in 2022-23, with 23.95 per cent projected for 2025-26. The brand reported Rs 1.9 crore in net profit, operates 19 outlets, and plans to add 24 more in the next two years Every outlet serves the same menu, sandwiches, beverages, fries with only five café-format stores offering coffee.
"We've scaled thoughtfully. In 2007, we partnered with Sachin Lele, Amit Saraf and Uday Lokras, who helped us build systems and processes." Growth also came with expansion into Spicezzaa - a spice brand legacy they inherited from an uncle in Rajasthan, whose shuttered business they revived by acquiring and preserving his recipes. There's tea, frankie, dabeli, sabzi, pav bhaji, pani puri, and sandwich masala.
There is a lot to take notes from this bootstrapped brand in terms of operations, branding, scaling and long-term planning that they sometimes don't teach about family-owned brands in Management schools. In that regard, Sandwizzaa's story feels homemade, one that is built on instinct, family, repetition, and the belief that a simple sandwich deserves respect.
