Zeeshan Bakhrani’s life after layoffs has a lot more cooking in it.
Bakhrani, 34, worked in product management for nearly a decade while pursuing his culinary ambitions on the side. Last year, after his second layoff, he decided to go all-in on Nishaan, his restaurant in New York City’s East Village that serves up Pakistani-American street food.
His menu combines “all the flavors I grew up with from both cultures,” he says.
Though he’s working much longer hours now — often 14 hours a day — he has more ownership and freedom than he did before. There are no more endless meetings or negotiating priorities with a boss, he says: “Here, I come up with an idea, I can knock it out in a week.”
Bakhrani grew up in Devon, which he describes as a “very diverse” part of Chicago where he could “find food on every corner,” from a range of cuisines, like Indian, Pakistani, Polish, Bosnian and Mexican. Bakhrani says Nishaan takes inspiration from the flavor fusions of foods he ate at home and in his neighborhood.
