Shahid Kapoor’s Ex-Driver’s Momo Shop Among 8 Suspended

A festival-season crackdown

The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration, led by Tukaram Mundhe, has suspended the licences of eight eateries in a food-safety drive ahead of the festive season. Among them is the original Andheri West outlet of Suraj Lama Momos, one of Mumbai’s better-known momo stops.

Inspectors found conditions serious enough to warrant immediate action under food-safety regulations. The concerns sit around the basics that decide whether street food is safe to eat:

• food handling and storage
• sanitation and cleanliness
• measures designed to prevent contamination

From celebrity driver to momo entrepreneur

The shop’s owner, Suraj Lama, has a backstory that makes this more than a routine food-safety notice. He moved from Mirik in Darjeeling to Mumbai at 14 and, after a string of jobs, became a professional driver for roughly 25 years. Over that career he drove for Shahid Kapoor, Sonakshi Sinha and Dharma Productions, among other film-industry names.

In an earlier interview with The Indian Express, Lama reflected on why he left. He said he often treated the people he worked with like family but did not always feel the treatment was mutual. He also recalled feeling upset when an actor declined a child’s request for a photo at a shoot. The arrival of app-based cab services such as Ola and Uber gave him another push toward change.

In 2017, Lama quit driving and began selling momos. He started with a cycle in Andheri West, then opened a roadside outlet in Versova with his wife Vijayata, who had earlier worked as a cook in singer KK’s home.

A brand built on a mother’s recipe

The business grew quickly. By 2024, Suraj Lama Momos had outlets in Malad and Kandivali, with a central kitchen reported to produce around 16,000 momos a day for its own outlets and franchise partners. Lama credited his mother’s recipe for the taste and said in a 2017 mid-day conversation that he did not use preservatives or artificial colouring.

That reputation is exactly why the suspension matters. A founder who built his name on freshness and a home recipe now has to answer for what inspectors found behind the counter. For Bollywood fans who followed his journey from celebrity cars to a food stall, the regulatory action is a sobering plot turn.

What happens next

The FDA action is part of a larger festival-season food-safety sweep, so more outlets may face similar checks in the coming weeks. For diners, the reminder is simple: a beloved brand’s popularity and celebrity-adjacent story do not replace a clean kitchen. For Suraj Lama Momos, the immediate job is to correct the flagged issues, then rebuild the trust that made the queues long in the first place.

Source: Mid-day

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#Bollywood News#festival season#food safety#Momo#Mumbai FDA#Shahid Kapoor#Sonakshi Sinha#Suraj Lama Momos