Famous food

The sign seems to be out to confuse you. Yes, of course that's a sardar welcoming you in, but the board says "Vellore". Check as many times as you like, but you'll not find any evidence of Vellore being anywhere near the land of the five rivers. And yet, that's what the sign goes on to imply. Also, I am sure there are sardars who are pure vegetarians, but I haven't come across one in all these years.

Eliminating the impossibles, this is what I'm left with. Sardar landed up in Vellore many many moons ago. Vellore, in case you didn't know, is a major clearing house for kuska - that is biriyani without pieces of anything. That probably drove home the point that vegetarianism is good business; and so sardar mixed the exotic "Punjabi Dhaba" with the blandness of Vellore cuisine, added in the "Gyan Vaishnav" for good measure and voila! Vellore Punjabi Dhaba became famous.

Actually, it became famous enough that it brought the Vellore Gyan Vaishnav brand to Chennai. Famous enough for the Chennai branch to be inaugurated by Amitabh Bachhan. For all that, it remains fairly rooted to the essence of the dhaba: simple food, quick service, easy on the wallet. No wonder that the sardar from Vellore has hundreds, maybe thousands, of die-hard fans in Chennai!