At Pokuli Junction, near Guirim Cross, a small food cart is quietly building a following. Vinny’s Goa has been open for barely a week, but the response has already been enough to keep its young founder busy.
A random start
There is no formal culinary training behind it. No long restaurant experience. Just Vincent Gonsalves, a love for food and a chicken dish that happened to turn out really, really well.
“It’s a pretty random thing,” Vincent says, tracing the story back to when he was around 19.
After dropping out of college, he tried applying for a food truck licence. But the plan stalled because he did not have a voter ID at the time. He eventually moved on to other businesses, including a kayaking venture in Baga, while the food truck idea stayed somewhere in the background.
Then came a picnic.
The picnic chicken
Vincent decided to cook chicken for the outing. He made it from scratch, and the response was immediate. His sister, mother, and father tasted it and suggested that he should actually do something with his cooking.
“That’s when I thought, okay, maybe I should start the food cart,” he says.
And so, Vinny’s Goa came to life.
Family influence
The cooking influence, he admits, comes largely from home. “My mom cooks really well. My mom and my sister,” he says. Vincent has also worked in wedding catering, but this is his first serious attempt at building a food business of his own.
He is not doing it alone. His sister, Shraddha, helps with the business, while his girlfriend, Kavya, pitches in from time to time.
A small menu
The menu is deliberately small, with a handful of dishes that keep the focus on what they do best. One of the current specials is the chicken pocket, featuring chicken cooked in a barbecue-style sauce with onions and packed into a pocket. There is also a prawn option, a pesto sandwich, and butter-garlic mushroom, one of Shraddha’s creations.
And although the cart is the visible part of the operation, much of the work happens before the food reaches it.
“Half of it is back home and half of it in the cart,” he explains. Preparing everything from scratch at the cart would take too much time, so some of the cooking and preparation is done at home. At the cart, everything is assembled, heated, finished, and served fresh.
Before the opening
The routine starts well before the 5 pm opening time. Vincent heads out for groceries while Shraddha handles other preparations. He cleans the cart, changes the garbage bags, handles maintenance, and keeps the surroundings in order. His mother also helps with the cooking. By around 4 or 4.30 pm, the family team heads out to set up.
The cart opens at 5 pm and runs until 10 pm, except Wednesdays. But if the first week is anything to go by, customers are not waiting around until closing time.
Sold out daily
“We get sold out every day,” Vincent says. They usually start serving around 5 or 5.30 pm and can be done by around 7.30 or 8 pm. For a food cart that has barely been around a week, it is a promising start.
The feedback has been just as encouraging. “It’s been only good, nothing negative so far,” Vincent says. Some customers have even told him it is the best chicken they have ever had.
For now, he is taking the compliments, learning the business and building his customer base one plate at a time. But the cart is not the final destination.
Bigger plans
Vincent sees the next one or two years as a period of building. He wants to grow his following, get to know his customers, build relationships, and eventually turn the little cart into something bigger. “Perhaps a restaurant or a café in the future,” he says.
There is ambition there, but not the kind that feels rushed. And perhaps that is also the spirit behind his advice to anyone thinking of taking a chance on an idea of their own.
“I think I would say to just do whatever your instincts say to them and do it without thinking about the pros and cons. Take all the risk and put your heart to it. If it works out, then it’s good, and if it doesn’t, then it’s a lesson. Either way, you’ve got to keep moving forward in life.”
For now, it is him, his family, a few homemade recipes, a small menu, and a food cart at Pokuli Junction that is already attracting a growing crowd.
It may have started with a random picnic chicken. But Vinny’s Goa, it seems, has plans of its own.
