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From Vision to Venture: How Dhanashree Kamathe is Reimagining Indian Street Food with PuneriKatta
Explore Dhanashree Kamathe’s journey of building PuneriKatta, a growing Indian street food brand. A powerful story of entrepreneurship, food business success, restaurant management, startup growth, women entrepreneurs in India, and creating scalable businesses with authentic Indian cuisine.
• Chaitra Divate • Category: Udyoginis Stories/ Stories
• 4 min read • Apr 2, 2026
Introduction: A Vision Rooted in Indian Street Food
Every entrepreneurial journey begins with a belief. For Dhanashree Kamathe, founder of PuneriKatta, that belief was simple yet powerful – Indian Street Food and regional flavours deserve the same recognition, presentation, and respect as any modern dining experience.
Dhanashree started her journey as a food entrepreneur with a clear vision: to bring authentic Maharashtrian cuisine into a clean, organised, and professionally branded format. While Indian Street Food has always been deeply loved across the country, it is often associated with informal dining spaces. Through PuneriKatta, she wanted to combine tradition and structure to build a brand people could trust.
Like many entrepreneurial journeys, the story of PuneriKatta did not begin with a detailed business plan. It began with a strong cultural instinct – the belief that traditional food deserves modern presentation and strong branding.
The Idea Behind PuneriKatta and the Power of Street Food
PuneriKatta was created from Dhanashree’s desire to give regional flavours the visibility they truly deserve. She felt that traditional Maharashtrian dishes are an important part of India’s culinary identity and should be celebrated in a more organised manner.
India’s Street Food culture is vibrant, diverse, and deeply rooted in everyday life. However, many traditional dishes remain limited to small local settings without strong branding or consistency. Dhanashree saw an opportunity to elevate Street Food by presenting it in a professional and structured environment.
PuneriKatta was never meant to be just another food outlet.
Instead, the brand was designed to combine cultural authenticity with operational discipline, ensuring that customers experience traditional flavours in a clean and consistent format.
Balancing Passion with Practicality in the Food Business
Turning an idea into a sustainable venture brings its own challenges. In the early days, balancing passion with practicality became one of the biggest lessons in Dhanashree’s journey.
Running a Food Business required her to manage daily operations, cash flow, margins, and team building – often with limited resources. Each decision felt critical, as it could directly influence whether the business stayed afloat.
Those early challenges helped her develop financial discipline and resilience. Over time, she understood that building a successful Food Business requires more than creativity or passion. It requires strong fundamentals, operational clarity, and the ability to make balanced decisions.
Building Trust Through Authentic Indian Cuisine
One of Dhanashree’s proudest achievements has been building PuneriKatta into a trusted brand with two operating outlets. For her, the real reward lies in seeing customers emotionally connect with the food.
PuneriKatta focuses on presenting authentic Indian cuisine in a clean, organised environment where quality and consistency remain central.
Customers often return not only for the flavours but also for the experience.
By combining traditional recipes with professional presentation, the brand highlights the richness of Indian cuisine while maintaining modern standards of service and reliability.
For Dhanashree, turning a cultural vision into a sustainable business has been one of the most fulfilling parts of the journey.
Lessons from Running a Restaurant Business
Entrepreneurship also brought valuable lessons about sustainability and growth. One of the most important lessons came from understanding the role of margins and financial planning.
In the early stages, Dhanashree focused heavily on customer experience and quality but underestimated the importance of cost control. Over time, she realised that running a successful Restaurant Business requires both passion and financial discipline.
Learning to balance vision with numbers became a turning point. She discovered that while passion builds the brand, numbers sustain the Restaurant Business in the long run.
Leadership, Resilience and Advice for Women Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship has also shaped Dhanashree’s perspective as a leader. Early on, she believed she needed to handle everything herself, but over time, she recognised that trusting others and delegating responsibility were essential for growth. Gradually, she learned that delegation builds stronger teams and allows businesses to grow more sustainably.
Setbacks also changed their meaning. Instead of seeing them as failures, she began treating them as feedback that helps improve both strategy and leadership.
Her advice to women who want to start their own ventures is simple – “It is okay to feel unsure. Confidence rarely appears overnight. It develops gradually through learning, experimentation, and persistence.”
Start small, understand the numbers, keep refining the idea, and keep moving forward.
The Future of PuneriKatta and the Rise of Indian Street Food
Looking ahead, Dhanashree sees PuneriKatta evolving into a scalable regional brand with multiple outlets and a strong operational backbone. The focus will remain on sustainable expansion, consistent quality, and disciplined growth.
Her experience with the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Program played an important role in shaping this vision. It encouraged her to step back from daily operations and think more strategically about building a sustainable, long-term business.
For Dhanashree, the journey is still unfolding.
She believes that Indian Street Food has immense potential to grow into a recognised and organised dining category. Through PuneriKatta, she hopes to contribute to that evolution and continue celebrating the flavours that make Indian Street Food such an important part of India’s cultural identity.