Success did not come easily to Kaaluram Chaudhary, known to many as Cals. Growing up in a family that relied on subsistence farming in Udayapur’s Chaudandigadhi, he learned early that earning a living could mean doing whatever work was available.
As a child, he worked part-time at a rice mill and went to school when he could. Later, he carried heavy loads for a construction company, worked as an office assistant, cut and delivered meat, and learned to cook in some of Kathmandu’s hotels.
His journey eventually took him from Nepal to Tibet, Dubai and the United States.
Today, at 47, Chaudhary runs his own restaurant in America, serving Nepali food alongside international dishes. The journey was neither easy nor planned. It was built one job, one setback and one opportunity at a time.
A childhood shaped by work
Chaudhary was born in 1978 into a poor family in Chaudandigadhi-5, Udayapur. Money was scarce, and he began working while still in school. At the local Mangal Rice Mill, he worked part-time, earning a small income to help cover his expenses before returning to his studies.
Then, in 1991, a political event changed his life. The owner of the rice mill, Congress leader Satyanarayan Chaudhary, popularly known as Kshetrapal, contested the general election that year and lost. The consequences were severe for his businesses. The rice mill eventually shut down, leaving the workers and technicians who depended on it without work.
Chaudhary was only in Grade 6. For a boy who had been balancing school and work, the closure meant losing the small income that helped him survive. He needed another way forward.
With the rice mill gone, Chaudhary travelled to Kathmandu in 1993 with the help of his neighbour, Kishun Dev Bishwakarma. Bishwakarma worked as a bus conductor on the Sita Travels route between Kathmandu and Gaighat. He helped the 15-year-old reach his maternal uncle’s home in Kalanki.
Kathmandu offered opportunities, but they were not easy ones. His first job was at an ice factory. He soon left because the work did not suit him. Then he found work with a construction company. He was still school-aged, but life gave him little choice. He worked as a labourer, carrying loads that were often heavier than himself.
“I had no alternative but to work,” Chaudhary recalls. “It was the middle of winter, but I had to work to arrange food and other necessities. I had to be ready to do whatever hard work was available.”
He spent three months at the construction company. Then an opportunity appeared that would change the course of his education. Someone from the company helped him get a job as an office assistant at the Chaudhary Group.
Studying on a rooftop
At Chaudhary Group, he worked during the day and lived there. But he had not forgotten about school. He knew his friends back home were moving into higher grades while his own education had stopped. So he began studying on his own. Every year, he bought books for the next grade and studied them in his free time. Grades 7, 8, 9 and 10 were completed not inside a classroom, but on the rooftop of the Chaudhary Group building.
“I would sit on the CG rooftop every day, remembering my friends and studying the pages of my books,” he says. “I studied Grades 7, 8, 9 and 10 there.”
He was known as a bright student in his village and did not want to give up on education. Eventually, he told someone at the office that he wanted to continue studying properly. The response was not encouraging.
An engineer mocked him and the matter reached his superiors. Chaudhary was effectively forced to choose between his job and his education.
He chose education. He resigned from the permanent job he had secured and walked away.
Becoming a butcher
Leaving the Chaudhary Group meant starting again. Chaudhary found work at a meat shop, where he cut meat and delivered it to different shops. He worked hard enough to catch the attention of the owner. Initially, he delivered meat on a bicycle. Within a month, the owner bought him a motorbike
Chaudhary began taking the job beyond simple delivery. He started marketing the meat himself and built relationships with hotels across Kathmandu. Soon, even five-star hotels were placing orders.
“I started taking meat to five-star hotels on my motorcycle,” he says. “After that, I began receiving offers for other jobs as well.”
His efforts were recognised again. The shop owner eventually bought him a car and handed him greater responsibility for marketing, deliveries, bills and payments.
“He valued my hard work and treated me like a son,” Chaudhary says. “He bought me a car and entrusted me with the entire marketing responsibility.”
By then, Chaudhary had built relationships with people across Kathmandu’s hotel industry. One of those connections opened another door.
Cooking his way up
In 2002, Chaudhary joined Hotel Yak & Yeti. He was hired to be a butcher, but the job became an informal culinary education. His colleagues were willing to teach him, and he began learning how to cook alongside his regular work.
“I got a job cutting meat there, but my colleagues were friendly and taught me cooking as well,” he says.
He gradually learned to prepare different dishes and gained experience in professional kitchens. That experience took him beyond Nepal. In 2006, he received an opportunity to work as a continental chef in Tibet.
It was his first international job. He worked at a hotel in Lhasa, where he also learned about Chinese cuisine and shared his own cooking knowledge. But Tibet brought another challenge.
The region experienced severe cold and long winters, meaning he could work for only about six months. After six months of work and another six months largely spent waiting out the winter, he returned to Nepal in 2007.
From Kathmandu to Dubai
Back in Kathmandu, Chaudhary joined Hotel Radisson as a senior cook. He worked there for two years. His ability to prepare food well and his willingness to teach others once again opened another door.
While working at Radisson, he received an offer from Al Bustan Hotel in Dubai. In 2009, he moved to the United Arab Emirates and began working as a chef. Dubai gave him another five years of experience in professional kitchens. But Chaudhary was still looking ahead.
His next opportunity would take him farther than he had ever imagined.
A job on one of the world’s biggest cruise ships
In 2014, Chaudhary moved to the United States after receiving an opportunity to work as a chef for Royal Caribbean. The cruise company operates some of the world’s largest passenger ships, capable of carrying thousands of people at a time. For Chaudhary, it was another new world. He worked as a senior cook and shared kitchens with people from different countries.
The experience exposed him to cuisines and cooking styles from around the world.
“Just as different countries have different ways of dressing, their food and dishes are different too,” he says. “I learned to prepare food from different countries and had the opportunity to exchange experiences with people from around the world.”
Two years on the cruise ship added another layer to the skills he had accumulated over decades. The boy who had once worked at a rice mill was now cooking for people from around the world. But he still had one more dream.
Bringing Nepal to America
After retiring from the cruise ship, Chaudhary began thinking about building something of his own. Together with some Nepali and American friends, he registered a company in 2022 and opened a restaurant in the United States. He named it Mount Everest Restaurant.
The idea was simple — bring the taste of Nepal to people in America while also offering international cuisine. The restaurant serves traditional Nepali dishes as well as food from other parts of the world.
“We can serve all kinds of food and dishes together,” Chaudhary says. “Nepalis can hold their heads high.”
For him, the restaurant is not simply another business. It is the culmination of everything he has learned along the way — from the meat shop and Kathmandu hotels to Tibet, Dubai and the cruise ship. The experiences of working alongside people from different countries have helped him understand different cuisines and bring them together under one roof. The restaurant has also created employment for eight people.
A journey built one step at a time
Chaudhary did not set out with a clear plan to become a chef or restaurant owner. At different points in his life, he was simply trying to solve the problem in front of him. When the rice mill closed, he went to Kathmandu.
When he needed money, he carried construction materials. When he could not attend school, he studied alone on a rooftop. When he left his office job, he cut and delivered meat. When an opportunity came at Yak & Yeti, he learned to cook. Then came Tibet, Kathmandu, Dubai, a cruise ship and, eventually, his own restaurant in America.
Each stage added something to the next.
His story is not one of sudden success. It is the story of a young boy who kept moving whenever one door closed — and learned something from every door that opened. Today, Kaaluram “Kals” Chaudhary is serving Nepali food thousands of kilometres from the village where his journey began.
The road from a rice mill in Udayapur to a restaurant in America was long. But he carried the lessons of every stop along the way with him.
