Raja's Samosas was born in Bradford out of the phenomenal success of Raja's Pizza Bar and Raja’s Chicken Bar in the mid '90s. These were founded by myself and my older brother, Zafar Iqbal (who was popularly known in Bradford as Raja, hence the business name).
Our first shops were the very first halal versions of Pizza Hut and KFC, and for a long time, rivalled those two businesses in Bradford.
In time, it led to the mushrooming of halal fast food throughout not just Bradford but the whole of the UK. Out of this huge success of Raja’s Pizzas and Fried Chicken, it was a natural progression to introduce Raja's Samosas to the world, because…
Ten years earlier, in the mid 80s, my brother and I were successfully running a video hire business called 2001 Video Library. We had multiple outlets throughout the city of Bradford, all doing excellent business.
But my brother, always an excellent chef, had a hankering to start a food business. So around that time, we launched a smaller side business, supplying freshly cooked samosas (much like the samosas we sell now) to local takeaways, retail shops, snooker clubs and so on.
The business proved to be very successful, but as it grew it became very difficult to maintain logistically, so that within a few years, we had to abandon it.
The one important fact to emerge from that short-lived business, though, was that the product was very popular and demand for it did not die out with its demise.
Whenever we came across any of the people we had supplied, they would always say "please, please bring back those samosas; they were something else!"
So we vowed to return to the project one day under better circumstances. And those better circumstances came with Raja’s, which we launched after having sold off the video hire business (we could see the end was nigh for that, as Sky TV had already launched by then!).
Tariq Masood
Co-Founder, Raja’s - Est. 1997
The picture above shows the Raja Brothers, Tariq Masood and Zafar Iqbal, at the height of Raja's success, in 1999. It was taken at the original Raja's branch on Oak Lane in Bradford. Standing between the two brothers is Tanny, who would later become a partner in the business (and is now ubiquitous on TikTok!).