Chettinad Indian Grill in Burlington and Santa Banta in Waltham Close; Udupi and Spice Grill in Nahua Merged and Rebranded at Biryani Pot
BURLINGTON, MA—Popular South Indian restaurant Chettinad Indian Grill in Burlington and North Indian restaurant Santa Banta in Waltham have closed their doors, owners of the restaurants confirmed.
The 98-seat Santa Banta had opened in 2014 at 458 Moody Street in Waltham. Raj Singh, owner of the Santa Banta, said after closing Waltham restaurant, he has opened two new restaurants: an Indo-Chinese restaurant called Singh Ching at the former Chettinad Indian Grill at 184 Cambridge Street in Burlington, MA; and an another Singh Saab in Arlington, MA. The 50-seat Singh Saab is located at 444 Main Street in Arlington, MA.
Singh Saab is open for lunch and dinner with full liquor license and serves North Indian food with some varieties of Indo-Chinese, Singh told INDIA New England News.
He said Indian restaurant market is Massachusetts is overcrowded and saturated. “Too many IT people are opening restaurants,” Singh said.
Satya Sundarannedi, who owned Chettinad Indian Grill and both Udupi and Spice Indian Grill in Nashua, NH, said he sold Chettinad to Singh Ching in order to focus on opening a new restaurant called Royal Tavern in nearby Billerica, MA.
Sundarannedi’s a new Indian fusion restaurant will be located in the former Pongal space at 786 Boston Post Road in Billerica. In an earlier interview, he had told INDIA New England News that Royal Tavern will be a tapas bar with Indian fusion food.
The Pongal, which specialized in preparing traditional dishes from the southern India, had been a popular restaurant in the area and had closed down.
Sundarannedi is also merging his two Nashua restaurants—Udupi and Spice Indian Grill located next to each other at 295 Daniel Webster Highway—into one and branding it as Biryani Pot.
