DesiPundit

Tucked between a strip mall Starbucks and a Jamba Juice, at the back door of a Chipotle Grill, Bombay Bowl is one of a number of Indian restaurants whose owners are thinking big no matter how small they are. Borrowing the assembly-line format, customized service and chipper style of national chains like Subway, they plan to make dals, curries, chutneys and flatbreads into fast-food choices from coast to coast.

He converted his studio on Mulberry Street in Little Italy into a tandoor factory. Over the past three decades, he has built more than 2,000 for restaurants across North America, including the Bombay Club in Washington and Bukhara Grill and Dawat in Manhattan, and as far away as Mexico, Belize and Fiji. “Coming from a fine arts background, it was very satisfying to make something so functional and so useful,” Mr. Levy said. “I think of it as ceramics that feeds the body, in addition to soothing the soul.”

Now Mr. Levy has developed a tandoor for home use, the Homdoor. It starts at $1,200.

Why didn’t an Indian think of it first or did we just outsource it?