From Cleaning Washrooms to CEO of Rs 120 Crore Business — A Story that Deserves to Be Heard

Vibhanshu Mishra: From Cleaning Washrooms to CEO of Rs 120 Crore Business

Imagine your first day at a dream job. You’re dressed in a sharp blazer, full of hope. Then, you’re handed a duster and told to clean the washrooms. For a whole month.

This is how Vibhanshu Mishra’s journey in the hospitality world began. It wasn't a glamorous start, but it was the first, crucial step in a journey that would take him from that humble moment to founding a business worth hundreds of crores.

Vibhanshu's father was the vice-principal of a well-known school. Naturally, he expected his son to be a top scorer. But Vibhanshu was an average student, scoring around 48-49% in seventh grade. This academic pressure created a distance between them.

As a child, he was his mother’s favourite. When he was nine, a neighbour who had studied hotel management and moved to South Africa became his inspiration. His mother told him he should pursue hotel management, and that idea stayed with him.

Then, tragedy struck. On 27 February 2006, while Vibhanshu was in 12th grade, his mother passed away. He was shattered. He failed his 12th-grade exams and later passed in the supplementary exams with a low score of roughly 42%. Holding onto his mother's dream, he enrolled in a hotel management course, arranged by his father.

Determined to change his life, Vibhanshu excelled in his first year of hotel management, topping his course with an incredible 94.2%. During a holiday break, he asked for a one-month vocational training placement and was sent to ITC Darleeling.

Full of excitement, he arrived in his full uniform. But his first task was a shock: he was given a duster and ordered to clean the washrooms. He thought it was temporary ragging, but it lasted the entire month, for which he earned a stipend of just ₹500.

Instead of quitting, he persevered. At the end of the month, he touched the General Manager’s feet and thanked him. That difficult experience, he says, was the real beginning of his hospitality education.

After graduating, Vibhanshu took a job at Pride Hotel in Nagpur. But his mother’s wish for him to go abroad stayed with him. When a friend told him about a low-level food and beverage job in Bahrain, he grabbed it, even if it meant being a waiter.

His job was to pick up food from the counter and serve it. He wasn't even a front-facing waiter. To get promoted, he had to overcome a big hurdle: he was a vegetarian, but most customers ordered non-vegetarian food. He adjusted, started serving chicken dishes, and was soon promoted, receiving a raise of 50 dinars (about Rs 15,000 at the time).

This opened doors to opportunities in Dubai, the US and finally Canada, where he worked for a large coffee chain for four years.

Vibhanshu hadn't planned to return to India for good. But a phone call changed everything: his father was diagnosed with cancer. He flew back, arranged his father's treatment, and after his surgery, his groggy father held his hand and said, “You are my younger son. You will stay here; you won’t go anywhere.”

For Vibhanshu, this was the emotional moment. He called his employers in Canada and told them he wasn’t coming back.

Back in India, he took a job in Goa, but the salary was a fraction of what he earned abroad. He then joined a major Indian food and beverage brand as a Senior General Manager, where he learned the secrets of the business. A year later, a powerful thought struck him: if he could build brands for others, why not build his own?

On 14 February 2020, with very little savings, he resigned. He registered his company, VVM Restaurant Consultants, on 17 February 2020. He launched an Indian-Chinese brand named “Chalu Chinese,” opening his first small outlet in Nagpur on 10 March 2020.

Fate tested him again. Just ten days later, the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown began. With no income for months, there were days his team slept hungry. But he didn't give up. By July 2020, he restarted and opened his outlet. Orders slowly picked up, and by December 2020, he had opened a second outlet in Bhopal, followed by more in Raipur and Bharuch.

He bootstrapped the entire business, reinvesting every rupee of profit. By July 2021, he was in debt of about Rs 1.5 crore. The second COVID wave forced several outlets to close. Yet, he relaunched, rebranded, and changed his strategy. He focused on popular items at lower prices, like selling a plate of momos for Rs 97 instead of Rs 150. It worked.

Between July and December 2021, he opened 13 outlets in just six months. The business exploded, scaling to over 250 outlets across India and even expanding to Canada. His group now includes another brand, VV Burger and the combined turnover runs into hundreds of crores.

In a beautiful tribute to his mother and his roots in Varanasi, Vibhanshu launched a special brand, “Banaras Wala.” He opened it on the anniversary of his mother’s death and invited his father to cut the ribbon. After 35 years, his father hugged him. That hug, Vibhanshu says, completed his journey.

His message to everyone is simple: believe in your idea, learn from every failure and never stop. Don’t worry about the competition; just be the firefly that keeps its light shining, no matter how dark the night.