Meer Irfan
SHOPIAN, May 6 — The grill sizzles. The coffee brews. But inside Zero Miles’ newest outlet, tucked opposite Jamia Masjid in Shopian’s bustling main market, the real menu is written in a different language — the language of payrolls, not platters.
In a valley where educated youth often find themselves clutching degrees with nowhere to go, a homegrown food chain has just turned the business model on its head. Its ninth outlet opened Wednesday. And the founders didn’t talk about margins. They talked about mouths to feed — through salaries.
“Our metric of success is not just revenue,” said Jibran Khan, founder and CEO of Zero Miles – Grill & Cafe, standing under the glow of a new signboard. “Every outlet must earn its place — not just in business, but in how it serves the community.”
Beside him, co-founder Javid Ahmad Mahroo drove the point home with a sentence that stopped conversations: “We are generating employees, not just filling positions. Growth without local hiring means nothing here.”
A District That Waits
Shopian knows waiting. It waits for apples to ripen. It waits for winters to pass. But the longest wait has been for jobs.
Enter Zero Miles. Not as a saviour. As an employer.
The Shopian franchise — helmed by local partners Syed Saqib Yousuf and Gazenfar Bashir — will track local hiring as closely as it tracks chicken tikka sales. Preference, the founders said, will go to youth from the district. No exceptions.
Grills With a Conscience
Known for its grill platters and quick-service vibe, Zero Miles is no charity. It’s a business. But it’s a business that has chosen a different compass. In a market crowded with national chains that fly in managers and source out profits, this Kashmir-born chain is betting on something riskier: trust.
Hyperlocal tastes. Hyperlocal hiring. And a quiet, stubborn belief that a cafe can be more than a place to eat.
For the young men and women of Shopian — tired of being statistics in unemployment charts — a cafe chain promising payroll over profit has become the most unexpected test case of all.
The grill is on. Let’s see who gets hired next.
