“I come from a country where we love food and talk most of the time about food,” said Joshi, before comparing Seattle’s standard Indian fare with nuclear waste.

Indian food’s aroma — cinnamon, cardamom, clove and cumin, sweet and savory scents blending — draws food lovers to trucks like Joshi’s during any lunch rush. Workers pour out of offices in downtown Seattle and South Lake Union to chat in small groups or stare at their phones as they await kathi rolls, curries and tastes of Mumbai.

And the trucks have become more than just food options for tech workers. They're now a business of choice for female entrepreneurs.

Among them are a handful of Indian women who have left well-paying jobs in tech to pursue dreams of owning small businesses. For Joshi and other Indian immigrant women, ditching tech for a truck isn’t as large a shift as it might seem — they take lessons from the tech industry into their own businesses.

Childhood hobby becomes a full-time business

Former Expedia worker Gayatree Shah’s black truck is adorned with images of potatoes, cucumbers, cheese and tomatoes. Signs detail the ingredients involved in the truck’s chutneys and sandwiches, made with an Indian twist. The food truck, often located in Amazon-inundated South Lake Union, has a long queue of people waiting for vegetarian, Indian-style sandwiches.

Shah, 34, loved to make sandwiches for her family as a teen. She never dreamed her passion would win her accolades. After working eight years in a couple of tech jobs, she quit and started her own food truck, VegWich .

“I enjoyed my work in Expedia, and it was challenging, but eventually I got bored,” Shah explained. “I wanted to do something challenging and use my creative energy. ... I dabbled myself in art and different things and started being creative with my recipe, and that’s how VegWich was born.”

Shah’s sandwiches mirror very popular snacks in Mumbai; dozens of versions are available in India. At Shah’s truck, the green chutney spread gives a kick to the grilled sandwich. The fresh veggies — tomatoes, beet roots, boiled potato, peppers and cucumber — crunch atop melted cheese.

Shah grew up in Mumbai and did her studies in India, where she earned a business degree and had dreams of one day owning her own business.

“During my childhood, on weekends, I used to prepare sandwiches for my parents, and they used to comment that if I don’t do well in my studies, then they would open me a sandwich food stall … and, see, here I am today with my food truck,” Shah said.

Shah, a Seattle resident, started her business in July 2016 to positive response. She recalls the first day of operating VegWich involved a 12-hour day prepping the food.



For Shah, working at a food truck was not as pleasant as she thought it would be.

“There were a lot of the days I cried because of the effort to put into the business,” said Shah, adding that the problem-solving and multi-tasking skills she learned in her technology job helped.

Though Shah isn’t making as much money as she did before, she said she sees a future in it, and the potential for financial success. She broke even the past two years, and she will start making a profit this year.

Comparing her life in tech and at her food truck, Shah said: “Work life as a data analyst was peaceful. I could go home and detach from work. … As a food truck owner, it has taken a lot of learning discipline to detach from work. I have had to learn to park issues and be in the present.”