It’s not complicated, and it’s something she’ll try to instill in her children – follow your dream, and work hard.
It’s Gunjeet Thind’s advice to women contemplating a career in business and it’s what she points to as her secret to success.
Like any true partnership, she said she splits responsibility for running a business with her husband Jag 50/50. Not 49/51 – 50/50.
That goes back to when they opened the extremely popular Mehtab restaurant in Cochrane, and had their first daughter Asees.
They bought Mehtab in 2011 and now also own and run two liquor stores in town, Joe’s Liquor and Joe’s Cochrane Liquor.
Asees came along a year later and for a while they commuted from Calgary with her strapped into a car seat. She was moved into a high chair in the restaurant, where they could keep an eye on her as they attended to customer service, pitched in with cooking and washing dishes, and in their spare time they also went door-to-door dropping flyers to drum up business.
“She didn’t like the car seat – she used to cry,” Thind said.
When it became evident the car seat commutes weren’t working, they made the decision to make Cochrane their home, and bought a house in Riversong in 2013.
“We worked so hard," she said. "I started at the restaurant when she was a month-and-a-half.”
Eventually the restaurant took off, garnering numerous customer choice awards and regular customers along the way.
Thind said one retired couple has become so close they bring Christmas presents for the three Thind children every year.
And they have a number of Bragg Creekers who count themselves as regulars as well.
The Thinds wrote the book on giving back to the community they have chosen as their home.
“Giving to community – that’s what we are here for,” she said.
Active in the Activettes Food Bank activities year round, they also find time to participate in a variety of ways with the Cochrane Immigrant Services Committee.
They also give to the BGC (formerly the boys and Girls Club) when they can.
They did a fundraiser for a woman who had to go to India for treatment for a rare disease.
But it’s the informal way they reached out to the town’s less fortunate hungry folks that touched many Cochranites a couple of years ago.
“We started during COVID, so many people didn’t have jobs and stuff, so every person who didn’t have a meal, they could come here and eat.
“We put a message on social media and a sign in the window,” she said.
She couldn’t remember the exact wording, but the message was nobody leaves hungry.
“We said if you’re hungry, we will feed you.”
