There are few things more frustrating in business than having your good idea copied by a competitor. In fact the only thing more frustrating is having your staff filched by the same copy cat.
So imagine how frustrated Atique Choudhury's parents were back in the 80s when that's what happened and three chefs walked out of their south Indian vegetarian restaurant in north east London. With a keen interest in the restaurant business Atique was thrown in at the deep end and asked to run the kitchen.
"The staff were offered ludicrous amounts of money in the short term to build up the competitor's business," he remembers. "So it was very difficult, but these are the pitfalls of business, and it's how I got my training as a chef. It gave me the ability to run a kitchen and our business was gradually built back up."
It was his big break into catering and it's gone on to be the business that has seen him running a top chain of Thai restaurants called Yum Yum.
Atique's interest in the food business was first seen when he set up a tuck shop that rivalled the school canteen.
"I knew from a young age that I'd be in business. I had quite an enterprising mind, I learned how to build an operation and how you make a profit out of a deal.
"When I was young I remember running the school tuck shop. That was a great project, we built it up and then got told off for being too good at it, since we were taking business away from the school canteen."
His entrepreneurial knack is a talent that runs in his family. His vegetarian mother spotted the potential in opening a vegetarian Indian restaurant and Atique, after running his own Indian restaurant, soon spotted the potential of opening a Thai restaurant well before they became a common sight on the high street.
"When I took over the Indian vegetarian restaurant Thai people used to work for me, preparing dishes.
"They were very good at presentation and had good knowledge of the diversity of ingredients and the kinds of taste that could be made. At that time Thai food in this country was in its infancy. So my wife and I decided to open a Thai restaurant together which we did in 1990.
"The name Yum Yum came from one of my favourite dishes, a Thai salad with chillies, lime and coriander. The response was crazy from the start, we were incredibly successful. We had complaints that people could never get into the restaurant because it was always full."
Because of its popularity by 1992 he had converted his existing south Indian vegetarian restaurant into another Thai.
So what was his secret? "What I did was make Thai food accessible with good descriptions of the food and at a good price. At that time people weren't aware of exactly what the Thai menu meant. We made the surroundings and atmosphere less pretentious than many other places, I wanted a relaxed environment and somewhere people would find the experience of eating fun."
He's gone on to establish a Thai internet cafe. But setting up successful eateries wasn't his only venture. Having left school to go straight into work he returned to education after his businesses were running to do a level four NVQ in restaurant management.
And doing this he realised what useful training these courses could be, allowing those participating to understand and work through difficulties that crop up in catering. He also discovered that there was no NVQ specifically for Asian restaurants.
"I got my training on the job, but I realised how useful a qualification like this could be. The Asian food business has a massive turnover and I thought this would bring more professionalism to it, make students think and ask questions such as how is your business to be structured, how do you manage staff, how do you deal with customer complaints."
He chaired a project called "breaking the log jam" set up by the hotel and catering training foundation which has now established the new NVQ.
And expansion will come from the creation of even more niches.
"You'll have restaurants set up specialising in regional tastes. Different parts of Thailand have totally different dishes, seafood dishes, vegetarian dishes so there'll be more emphasis on variety rather than just one menu," he says.
