The Story Behind 7 Monks Cafe in New Braunfels

People sometimes ask how 7 Monks started.

And the funny thing is, there was never some perfectly polished business plan sitting on the kitchen table.

It was much more personal than that.

Food has always been a huge part of our family.

Not fancy restaurant food.

I mean the kind of food that gets made because someone is hungry, someone is visiting, someone had a long day, or my mom decided you clearly haven’t eaten enough.

Basically, normal Indian family life.

And somewhere along the way, that turned into 7 Monks.

My mom, Neeta, has always cooked the way she learned growing up.

A little of this.

Taste it.

Add something.

Taste it again.

No measuring cup in sight.

If you ask her exactly how much spice she added, you might get an answer like:

“Enough.”

Very helpful.

But that’s also what made the food feel so personal.

These weren’t recipes created in a test kitchen.

They were dishes we already knew.

The kind of food we had eaten around our own table.

When we opened in New Braunfels in 2019, Indian food wasn’t necessarily something everyone here had grown up eating.

Some people knew exactly what they wanted.

Others would walk in and say:

“I’ve never had Indian food before.”

And honestly, those conversations became some of my favorites.

Because trying a new cuisine can feel intimidating when you don’t recognize half the words on the menu.

You don’t know what’s spicy.

You don’t know what you’re supposed to eat with what.

You’re wondering whether you’re going to pronounce something wrong.

And suddenly dinner feels like a test.

I never wanted it to feel like that.

Food should be fun.

One thing running a restaurant teaches you very quickly is that people have opinions.

A lot of opinions.

Some people want heat.

Some people absolutely do not.

Some want vegetarian food.

Some are vegan.

Some need gluten-free options.

Some already know exactly what they love.

And some just want you to tell them what to order.

That made us think differently about how we explained the food.

Instead of assuming everyone already understood Indian cuisine, we started trying to make things simpler.

What is this dish?

What does it taste like?

Is it spicy?

What should I eat with it?

Those sound like small questions, but they matter when someone is trying something for the first time.

If you’ve followed any of our stories for a while, you already know my mom is a big part of all of this.

She has opinions.

Strong ones.

Sometimes very strong ones.

We have definitely disagreed over food.

We have disagreed over menu ideas.

We have disagreed over what Americans will or will not eat.

And yes, she has absolutely told me an idea was ridiculous before later deciding maybe it wasn’t so bad.

That’s family.

But she also has this way of making food feel like it matters.

If something doesn’t taste right, you fix it.

If someone is hungry, you feed them.

If you’re cooking for people, you care about what you’re giving them.

That part has always stuck with me.

One thing people sometimes ask about is why there’s both Indian and Mediterranean food.

To us, it never felt as strange as it sounds on paper.

Both cuisines have so many ingredients and flavors that feel at home together.

Spices.

Fresh herbs.

Rice.

Vegetables.

Yogurt.

Chickpeas.

Warm breads.

Sauces that somehow make you want to keep dipping things long after you’re full.

They’re obviously very different cuisines, but there’s also a shared feeling of food being meant to be eaten together.

That part felt natural.

Before owning a restaurant, I never thought this much about rice.

Or naan.

Or how many containers fit into a catering order.

Or whether someone can tell that a sauce was made differently that day.

Now I notice everything.

You learn very quickly that the things customers see as simple usually aren’t simple at all.

A bowl of rice has a process.

A curry has a process.

Even getting lunch out quickly has about twenty things happening behind it that nobody eating lunch needs to know about.

And honestly, that’s probably how it should be.

The whole point is that the person eating gets to enjoy the food.

We get to worry about everything behind it.

When I think about 2019 compared with now, so much has changed.

We’ve learned what people love.

We’ve learned what people are curious about.

We’ve learned which ideas work and which ones sounded much better in our heads.

We’ve catered weddings.

We’ve changed menus.

We’ve added things my mom originally questioned.

We’ve had customers become familiar faces.

And somewhere between all the daily chaos, the restaurant started collecting its own stories.

That might actually be my favorite part.

It’s easy to describe a restaurant by listing what kind of food it serves.

But I don’t think that explains the whole thing.

For me, 7 Monks is a mix of family recipes, arguments with my mom, figuring things out as we go, feeding people, and introducing someone to a dish they’ve never tried before.

It’s not always glamorous.

Sometimes it’s just standing in a kitchen talking about rice for way too long.

But somehow, that’s the story.

And I wouldn’t really know how to tell it any other way.