in the early 1940s a young kuppusamy arrived in erode from coimbatore in search of a job he ended up at an eatery opposite the railway station and toiled there for 11 years it was there that he chanced upon a regular customer who would later become his fatherinlaw postmarriage kuppusamy tried his hand at a couple of businesses but they didnt clickhe then decided to do what he knew best in 1960 kuppusamy and his wife rukmini started a tiffin centre in a makeshift shed without even a name board it came to be called kuppanna kadai and drew a steady stream of customers in 1975 it put up a name board kuppanna hotel and in 1977 moved to its own premisesthere was a rule in the family all the children once they reach age of 11 have to work in the eatery before school i too started as a table cleaner and by the time i completed my puc i had become a parotta master recalls murthy k now chairman junior kuppanna kitchens private limitedafter puc i abandoned studies and worked full time at the eatery in 1983 my father felt it was time for me to branch out on my own and wanted me to suggest a name i proposed the name chinna kuppanna but my mother rejected that saying people will think it is a small hotel she named it junior kuppanna this was much before vikatan publications had even launched its junior vikatan magazine says murthyjunior kuppanna thrived in erode by the early 2000s it had made a name for itself for authentic kongu cuisine based on homemade masalas by then murthy had convinced his cousin and close friend arumugan p to join him as a partnerthe highlight of kongu cuisine is that it uses the best ingredients from across tamil nadu andhra pradesh karnataka and kerala these suit the local climate and do no harm to our health my father advised me not to even think of diluting it it is not as spicy as chettinadu cuisine which uses ingredients from abroad owing to its overseas trade in the past though predominantly nonvegetarian we also offer the best vegetarian options says murthy as customers urged it to open branches in other cities junior kuppanna spread to coimbatore and chennaiinitially we used only homemade masalas as the number of outlets increased we established a masala factory with mostly women employees and it supplies masalas for our outlets all over we do not supply to anyone else says murthyjunior kuppanna had opted for the franchisee model for expansion it now has close to 45 functional outlets including 18 in the kongu region and 10 in chennai besides other cities in tn as well as bengaluru it also has a system in place to run chefless kitchens everything we serve is from our own recipes hence there is no need for chefs we have systemized everything into simple 78 processes and anyone who wants to work in