LAHORE: More than five decades ago, Hajji Latif would balance a platter of potato-and-chickpea chaat on his head and wait outside a cinema in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore, selling the sweet, tangy and spicy street snack to moviegoers during breaks.

The cinema crowds that once defined Lahore’s Lakshmi Chowk have largely disappeared. Latif’s platter became a roadside cart and eventually a small shop. But his family is still there, serving the same chaat to customers who have returned across generations.

Chaat is a broad family of street snacks eaten across South Asia, with countless regional variations built around contrasting flavors and textures. At Rana Aloo Chana Chaat, boiled chickpeas and sweet potatoes are layered with onions, tomatoes, coriander and mint and topped with yogurt, sweet chutney, lemon and the family’s own spice mixture.

The shop’s location is part of its story. Lakshmi Chowk was once at the heart of Lahore’s film industry, a gathering place for actors, filmmakers and cinema audiences. As that era faded, the neighborhood reinvented itself as one of the city’s best-known culinary districts, its restaurants and roadside eateries drawing crowds late into the night.

Today, Latif’s grandson, 29-year-old Muhammad Kashif, represents the third generation behind the counter.

“This work started with my late grandfather,” Kashif, the owner of Rana Aloo Chana Chaat near Lahore’s Lakshmi Chowk, told Arab News.

“This is our job from the beginning ... We have never hired an outsider to take care of this.”

Latif first graduated from carrying his food on his head to selling it from a roadside cart. His son, Khalil Ahmed, helped him as a child before eventually taking over. When Ahmed died in 2020, Kashif inherited the business and now runs it with his uncle.

The work has remained distinctly familial. Kashif’s grandmother once helped prepare ingredients at home. His mother now performs that role.

A plate sells for Rs170 ($0.60), making the shop part of a street-food culture in which inexpensive snacks are assembled and eaten quickly at roadside stalls, markets and neighborhood shops.

For Kashif, however, becoming its custodian was not inevitable. His father sent him abroad, but circumstances eventually brought him back to Lahore and the business his grandfather started.

“Now my mother says that I have to take care of everything,” he said. “People appreciate it, saying, ‘It’s a big deal that you took care of your grandfather’s work. You should take it forward. Otherwise, the new generation doesn’t like it’.”

“UNIQUE QUALITY“

The continuity is visible on both sides of the counter.

Some customers who were brought to the shop as children now arrive with children of their own, making the business as much a repository of family memories as a place to eat.

“I used to come here with my father to eat potato and chickpeas,” Imran Hussain, a 39-year-old government servant, told Arab News.

“It is still the same. Now the children have grown up. Now we come here to eat chickpeas with their sons.”

For Hussain, what survived was not merely a recipe. The relationship between customer and vendor was also inherited.

“His [Ahmed’s] sons are the same, they love us and are like brothers to us,” he said.

Amir Sheikh, a 48-year-old businessman, said his own family’s relationship with the shop stretches back about half a century. He now travels from Lahore’s more affluent DHA neighborhood to the old commercial heart of the city for its chaat.

“It’s been 50 years since my elders started eating aloo chaat and chana,” Sheikh told Arab News.

“Whenever we went to Shah Alam [market], we would eat from here. It has a unique quality.”

Hafiz Azeem, 43, has been coming for around 15 years.

“We especially come here to have this,” he said.

“This taste is such that you won’t find a taste like this in Lahore.”

Kashif credits the loyalty to habits established by his grandfather, whom he remembers through family stories as constantly cleaning mirrors and surfaces and finding work to do rather than sitting idle.

“First it is Allah’s blessing. Then my grandfather did hard work. We are eating the fruit of that,” he said.