Former tech worker quit his 14-year career to launch a BBQ restaurant and made $2.3M in revenue in his first year

Most radical who walk 14 years climbing the tech ladder astatine companies similar Google, Microsoft and Shopify don't locomotion distant to fume brisket. Salahodeen Abdul-Kafi did, Business Insider reports (1).

Abdul-Kafi opened Kafi BBQ successful Irving, Texas, successful December 2024 (2) — a halal barbecue edifice that helium says generated conscionable nether $2.3 cardinal successful full gross successful its archetypal year. He's projecting betwixt $3.6 and $4 cardinal for 2026.

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The roadworthy determination started with YouTube videos and brisket drops from his house. "I was feeling a small spot disillusioned successful tech. I wanted a caller start," helium says. He spent a twelvemonth doing pop-up income from home, generating astir $60,000 successful revenue, past utilized that instauration to unfastened a brick-and-mortar location.

The spread helium spotted

Abdul-Kafi identified thing the Texas barbecue marketplace had mostly ignored: an full demographic with wealth to walk and nary spot to walk it. About 50% of his customers travel a halal fare (3) that prohibits pork and requires circumstantial carnal slaughter practices, and 50% don't.

"For a batch of my customers, this is the precise archetypal clip successful their lives that they've been capable to locomotion into a Texas barbecue edifice and devour perfectly everything connected the menu," helium observed.

That marketplace is important and growing. According to the Imarc Group, the U.S. halal nutrient marketplace was valued astatine $733.6 cardinal successful 2025 and is expanding rapidly, driven by a Muslim colonisation of astir 3.5 cardinal and rising request from non-Muslim consumers who subordinate halal certification with ethical sourcing and nutrient prime standards (4).

But spotting the spread was the casual part. Executing it successful Texas — wherever pork is king — required reinventing astir everything. "We don't service pork astatine Kafi BBQ. And successful Texas, pork is the highest borderline point connected each paper due to the fact that it's truly inexpensive to get and it's truly accelerated to cook," Abdul-Kafi explains (2).

Without pork casings for sausage and without pork fat, which helium notes is "a overmuch amended binding cause than beef fat," helium had to make workarounds from scratch for virtually each product.

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