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Growing up, one of my fondest food memories was associated with bunking class and walking around the South Bombay streets with friends. We would always stop by the BEST-bus-red kiosk located just before the ticket counters at Churchgate station, to be swallowed into the amazing universe of Tibbs Frankie. The aroma of the beaten eggs hitting the perpetually hot, square tawa, being blanketed by the flatbread and flipped over to be filled with anything from paneer tikka to chilli Manchurian gravy and a sprinkle of their ‘secret’ masala, is a scent I carry in my mind even today. A quick internet search more recently, led me to be aware that not only has the frankie roll been around since 1969, but also that Mr. Amarjit Singh Tibb, the late founder of the company, was the pioneer behind introducing a portable meal-in-a-roll to Bombay’s fast-paced citizens.
As fascinating an idea as it may have seemed, in an era when the country was struggling to find its feet politically post-Independence, Mr. Tibb brought to India, a product from his travels in Beirut, that would go on to feature on almost every roll menu in a street cart, many years later. As we settle down to chat with Harpreet Singh Tibb, the current director of the brand, he is quick to clarify that the word ‘frankie’ is a trademarked product that was created by his uncle, exclusively for Tibbs Frankie and that anyone who’s trying to sell rolls otherwise is only claiming to sell a frankie. “India never really had its own snack dish per se, and everybody tried cultivating and developing new formats,” he elaborates further. Harpreet also points out that the process of preparing the roti, gravy, beating the eggs to order and rolling everything up to serve these rolls in a sleeve, was an idea that Amarjit Singh Tibb came up with, in collaboration with his wife, Mrs. Surinder Singh Tibb.
Seen in Image: Harpreet Singh Tibb
“There are people who eat food at a basic functional level. The second cohort of people attach emotions with food that connect them to their roots. People have childhood memories and associations with certain dishes that they’ve eaten before. Then there is a third, quasi-spiritual level where people actually begin to take ownership of the food they cook and eat. Right from our ancient texts, food has always been part and parcel of our well-being,” Harpreet mentions when asked why food makes a subject worthy of documentation. He then goes on to talk about how the frankie masala blend, a family recipe that’s manufactured in their Andheri factory, is the brand’s secret weapon to have customers keep coming back for more.
Harpreet describes that most places that serve rolls use sauces but seldom a gravy – a detail that keeps the frankies ‘juicy’. “Frankie rolls, unlike a shawarma or kebab roll, are the only rolls that are served with a gravy. I always tell people that when I have to eat a frankie, I always drink up the last bite because there’s always some gravy leftover at the bottom of the sleeve. Isko peeke khatam karo yaar, khaake nahi,” he chuckles while recollecting his earliest memories of biting into his favourite mutton frankie. He then evokes memories from the archives in my head of the gravy dripping down my chin and staining my clothes with the ochre masala when he mentions how people post pictures of themselves even today, while enjoying a frankie. He dismisses the prim and proper way of eating as a western concept and talks about how we as Indians, prefer to savour various flavours together, all at once.
Of course, with changing times, the brand has taken on a direction that they wouldn’t have possibly seen coming a couple of decades ago. Harpreet divulges that the brand has continued to do well since after the pandemic in both, online and offline sales; a feat most businesses could only aspire for. A conscious mapping of what products work well for what kind of markets has enabled them to fuse local flavours into the frankie and come up with flavours like Chettinad chicken and bhuna gosht. Talking about evolution in the street food space, he explains that Tibbs started off with 3-4 flavours on the menu, which has now expanded to a whopping 25 flavours along with new products like biryani, brownies, beverages and pizza rolls (the Rollizza). He implies that giving the masses exactly what they like but with a classic Tibbs touch, has been something they’ve kept a tab on for close to three decades in the company that’s now 53 years old.
“There’s nothing different that we’re doing now than when we started our journey. Frankie as a roll is completely Indian. It started off with the thought of whether we could create an Indian dish using Indian flavours because we take pride in our food and wanted to leverage the use of essential Indian spices,” Harpreet goes on to add. He says that the innovation is outside-in, in the sense that the team has an ear on the pulse of what’s hot at the moment, paying close attention to client feedback and modifying the menu to appeal to customers. However, he emphasizes on the fact that most places serving street food across the country have focussed around fresh ingredients or serving fresh food. He believes that coming from a culture where the practice of storing food wasn’t traditionally endorsed, and leftovers were fed to the cats or crows, street food ranks high in order of preference because most of it is prepared right in front of the customer’s eyes. “I think that it’s one of the biggest reasons why pre-packaged meals haven’t taken off here. For people to be able to see how their food is being prepared, was the genesis behind setting up kiosks when we first began,” he goes on to add.
Like every other brand that takes its course to evolve, Tibbs Frankie rides the wave amongst rushed office-goers, college students or anyone who just wanted a break from a bland meal. At the end of it, it was all about getting something customised to meet your requirements; adding an extra sprinkling of green chillies or asking for more chopped onions and gravy before a roll was assembled and even just standing by the hot tawa in anticipation, were joyous experiences in the process of getting a frankie. Being part of a city’s food culture that was populated with equally beloved local delicacies like the vada pao, missal pao and chat, and establishing a food item which was practically a meal, was not for the faint-hearted. “To be able to move our operations out of Bombay and launching in other cities was a big move. Post the pandemic, we evolved as a format from a kiosk to a parlour or outlet, which is also significant for us.”
Although the recipe to making the perfect Tibbs Frankie remains a family secret, Harpreet shared with us his favourite way to eat a Classic Mutton Frankie – lots of frankie masala, no green chillies, plenty of onions and mint chutney.
