This is Planet Money from NPR.

Dan Pashman.

Hey Sally.

You will recall the scene.

It is last summer, very hot day.

I should have worn shorts.

And you and I show up at a little restaurant in New York City, specifically in Long Island City, Queens.

It's a casual Indian place called Adha, which translates roughly to Hangout Spot.

And that's the five founder Ronnie Mazumdar was going for.

You're Ronnie?

I'm Sally.

How are you? Very nice to meet you.

Ronnie knows the restaurant business.

He currently owns three places in New York, but he's also run two that have closed, including one in this very location.

And he told us that the whole concept of Adha is a risk.

We took a lot of chances in a restaurant like this.

Serving goat brains isn't really a normal protocol here in New York because you're scared out of your mind like maybe it's way too ethnic.

When Adha got noticed with some great reviews and a fancy James Beard Award nomination,

suddenly the business changed.

And unexpectedly Ronnie had a problem.

The problem is not the food.

It's actually the physical space and how the physical space relates to the money.

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