Fatty Patty was meant to be simple.
The brothers had other ideas.

01 / The steak sandwich

A steak sandwich worth another go

The steak sandwich began with a question about how closely to follow their father’s food. He was known for his steak rolls, the brothers explained, and they wanted something connected to that cooking on the menu. They could make it the traditional way or take it in a direction of their own.

The first trial had not settled that question. Rather than persist with the sandwich they had expected to be a favourite, they reconsidered what they enjoyed eating and what they wanted to serve. The steak became the starting point for the revised version.

The aim was to make a steak sandwich they would want to eat themselves, not simply to reproduce the roll they remembered. They described choosing steak they would be happy to serve as a meal in its own right.

02 / A burger plan

It started with a much smaller menu

Fatty Patty followed earlier businesses and a plan that did not come off. Bilal explained that they had sold Burger Me to make themselves available for another business opportunity. Burger Me was doing well, he said, but the next venture did not proceed.

He recalled a gap year afterwards. When I asked whether they had used that time to relax, Bilal distinguished his own break from his brothers’ experience: they had still been working.

For Shehzad, the lesson from earlier businesses was patience. A different menu or location meant learning again, however much experience they brought with them. His approach was to do what they could, then accept that not everything would go as expected.

Moving Sam’s Gourmet Pizzas created the opportunity for Fatty Patty. Bilal described burgers as familiar ground: something they knew they could do, with a small smash-burger menu as an addition to the venue.

Shehzad wanted sandwiches too. His wish list grew to include an assortment of smoked meats. Bilal pushed back on the workload. They could not make everything Shehzad had in mind, and the brothers narrowed the plan to smoked pastrami and sandwiches.

That still required equipment. In Shehzad’s account, Bilal pressed for a smoker so they could start testing. Shehzad questioned whether they would use it enough to justify buying it. Zainuddin eventually backed the purchase as the way to find out.

After the back-and-forth, they bought a smoker, which Shehzad recalled costing $700. Then came repeated trials. He could not settle on how many attempts it took, but described working on the smoking until they were satisfied enough to put the pastrami on the menu.

03 / Making the pastrami

Why make the pastrami themselves?

The pastrami was not simply an extra item to order in. The brothers said they had struggled to source a version they liked that also met their halal requirements. Making it themselves let them develop the product around what they wanted to eat.

They were careful about what that meant. The underlying process of making pastrami was familiar, they explained; their own adjustments gave them something particular to serve. They were describing their approach to the food, not claiming to have invented it.

Preparing it themselves also meant judging demand ahead of time. In the opening weeks, they recalled making a batch they expected to last, then selling out. As they discussed the timing, the recollection shifted from the first week to the second. The point they agreed on was that the supply had gone faster than expected.

They took that as encouragement. It also exposed a constraint of the menu they had chosen: pastrami takes time to prepare. A batch running out could not be replaced as quickly as another order could be taken.

What began as a familiar burger offering now included a product they had to trial, prepare and plan for themselves.

04 / Their father’s advice

Their father gave them the appetite, and a warning

Their father’s influence reaches further back than the steak sandwich. Zainuddin remembered his Portuguese steak, assembled on a hot clay plate with rice, chips, gravy and egg. Shehzad recalled fried chicken with crisp skin. Food had been part of family life through their father’s restaurants and the cooking he did at home.

They also recalled their father’s weekend steak-roll and chicken sales from a kitchen at home. A story about Bilal calling for food at seven o’clock became a teasing exchange, complete with a denial.

But when the brothers considered hospitality themselves, their father initially discouraged them. They said he understood how much of their lives the work could consume and did not want them to experience the struggles he had known.

For a while, they said, they steered away from it. They eventually decided to take the risk. They described the initial period as difficult and said the support between them had helped them reach more of a balance.

His warning has not disappeared from their view of the work. Asked what someone starting a food business should know, the brothers talked about keeping standards on quiet days, finding a good team and meeting rent and overheads whether trade was busy or not.

Their encouragement to start came with practical qualifications: work through the numbers and consider what could go wrong. They spoke about the demands of an established shop differently from the appeal of an idea. Their father had given them both the food they remembered and a warning about the work behind it.

05 / One decision

Three people, one decision

When I asked how three brothers could agree on the same decisions, they described a rule rather than a division of job titles. A decision has to be unanimous.

If one brother says no, the others can try to convince him. If he remains opposed, they leave it. They also said they do not return to a shared decision afterwards to blame one another for the outcome.

Asked for a major disagreement about Fatty Patty, they did not supply one. They acknowledged ups and downs, including the sandwich discussions, but said they had broadly agreed on the direction of the business.

The smaller tensions were more recognisable to them: a busy kitchen, people rushing, things happening in the pressure of service. They described sitting down at night to clear those up, rather than carrying them into the next day.

Zainuddin traced their approach to a lesson from their father. The fingers of a hand are different, he had taught them, but stronger together. Zainuddin connected that lesson with years of living in the same house and going into business alongside one another.

There was room for teasing in our conversation, too. Shehzad’s introduction as the middle child prompted jokes about getting pressure from both sides. Bilal introduced himself as the youngest and drew attention to still having his hair. The reply turned the joke back on the stress he gave his brothers.

06 / What stayed with me

What stayed with me

After the talk of sandwich trials, smokers and family decisions, I asked what they ordered from their own menu. The answers were a double cheeseburger, the FP Deluxe, and another double cheeseburger, without onion.

The sandwiches had expanded the plan. Two of the brothers’ favourites still came back to the burger they had started with, though they did not quite agree on what should go in it.