What to expect at new Indian-Pakistani market in Warner Robins. See inside

Staying up until 3 a.m. to get everything just right for the recent grand opening of a new Indian-Pakistani grocery store in Warner Robins apparently paid off for the five local families behind it.

The Maharaja Market at 4025 Watson Blvd., Suites 180, 190 and 200, in the former Tuesday Morning location is doing a brisk business.

Working together, the five families who joined forces to establish the store, stocked nearly 200 shelves that are about 15 feet high and 3 feet wide, 32 freezers and a 12-door refrigerator over about a month’s time. The produce arrived the afternoon before the grand opening.

What to expect at Maharaja Market

The 9,922-square-foot Indo-Pak grocery store specializes in a wide variety of Indian and Pakistani products, including fresh produce such as karela, a bitter melon, and refrigerated treats such as Deep Indian Kitchen’s Rasmalai, a dessert of soft cheese patties in a creamy milk sauce.

Among the frozen vegetables is a host of frozen meals ready for the air fryer or microwave such as Deep Indian Kitchen’s Bhindi Masala made with okra, onions, tomatoes, ginger and spices and Colonel Kababz’s Chicken Seekh Kabab made with all-natural and minimally processed Halal chicken that’s grilled and infused with South Asian spices.

The market also is filled with aisles upon aisles of flours, oils, rice, spices, all kinds of sweets and snacks and ethnic cooking essentials such as ghee, which is clarified butter common to Indian dishes.

Not only is there a wide variety of offerings, but within a product group, there’s also a wide variety of brands.

“Say we both like tea cakes, but you may prefer this brand over the other,” said Malay Patel, whose parents are among the market’s co-owners. “It’s just one of those things where people prefer brands, and we just want to make sure everyone has the option to get what they want.”

Much of what can be found in the store is unique in that the products are hard to find in Middle Georgia, which was the impetus for the families to open the market.

The families, most who have lived in Warner Robins for years, were tired of driving to Atlanta to find food and products native to their homeland.

Favorite finds and filling a need in the community

For Kinjal Patel, she can now find her favorite Indian ice cream, Amul Chocochips, right inside the store her parents co-own.

“You get it in these little small cups that are so tiny and cute and you can get them everywhere in India,” she said. “But here, it’s like we had to go all the way to Atlanta to get them, and it makes me so happy that I can just come to the store and get one whenever I want.”

The market was designed to fill a need for the Indian and Pakistani community in Middle Georgia.

Tauseef Dilawari, a native of Pakistan who lives in Warner Robins, was delighted to find a tin of Karachi’s Osmania Biscuits, a favorite from her homeland.

“Well, I’m impressed, that’s all I can say,” Dilawari said of the store. “They have a whole lot of stuff, and it’s very clean. My biggest thing is clean.”

Shopping with her son-in-law and grandchildren, Dilawari also came home with Indian cake rusk, an Indian sweet called jalebi, Pakistani beef kabobs, Indian samosas and rasmalai.

The market also provides the wider Middle Georgia community with a way to try new foods, spices and products from another culture.

Michael and Kaylan Glass of Perry stopped in to check out the market and support their friend Malay Patel. The two men are clinical pharmacists and work together at Atrium Health Navicent in Macon.

“Me and my wife are all about,” Michael Glass began as his wife finished his sentence, “trying different things from different cultures; supporting local.”

The couple picked up a spice mix for an Indian chicken dish, some Cothas Coffee from a family-owned company from Bangalore, India, some raw peanuts from India, which is one of the world’s largest peanut producers, and some Indian candy, naturally, with their son and best friend’s daughter, both nearly age 3, in tow.

The market offers a sense of a treasure hunt for favorite foods from one’s homeland to new discoveries of flavors and tastes for foodie fans.

A few things the market offers

Here are a few things Maharaja Market offers:

• Kesar mango, jackfruit and sugar cane. Much of the produce in the store is grown at specialty farms across the U.S. by Indian farmers who immigrated to America.
• A variety of Deep Indian Kitchen’s naan pizzas such as spinach paneer or eggplant paneer in the freezer section, as well as the brand’s other pizzas such amdavid bhakri pizza, an Indian street pizza with a flat bread base.
• Hajoori Kashmira Masala Jeera, a soda pop made with roasted cumin and traditional Indian spices, and “Thums Up,” an Indian soft drink that’s actually a Coca-Cola brand, can be found in the refrigerator section or the aisles of the market. The store also has Lassi drinks, a popular and traditional yogurt-based drink in India.
• An Indo-Chinese section where shoppers can find Ching’s red and green chili sauces, Siricha Chili Sauce and other sauces for making fusion dishes.
• Aisles and aisles of snacks, including Phool Makhana, puffed fox nuts, and Raju Nadiyadi Mix of fried lentils, gram flour and spices that Patel said was one of his favorites.

The market also features some Hindu religious items behind the cash registers, including bajots, low rectangular tables often used for spiritual offerings, Vastu Pooja kits and other kits for religious ceremonies, and Kumkum powder, a red powder often applied to the forehead and also used in various ceremonies and festivals.

What customers won’t find in the store is a meat market partly because most fresh and frozen meats can be found in any grocery market and the families wanted to focus on ethnic products that can be hard to find locally, Patel said.

Who owns Maharaja Market?

In addition to the Maharaja Market, the families own and operate other local businesses and attend the same Hindu temple. The families include:

• Kenny and Pramila Patel, the parents of Kinjal Patel. Her parents met Jay and Surya Patel at Shree Swaminarayan Hindu Temple ISSO at 5156 Housers Mill Road in Byron.
• Jay and Surya Patel are Malay Patel’s parents and they own and operate the Econo Lodge at 12003 Watson Blvd., and lease the adjacent convenience store and gas station at 12005 Watson Blvd. near Interstate 75.
• Bobby and Renuka Patel, who own Neighbors Grocery convenience store and gas station at 1205 Main St. in Perry. Bobby Patel is Jay Patel’s cousin.
• Sanjay and Nayna Patel, who own a Texaco and liquor store at 2328 U.S. 41 in Perry. Sanjay Patel and Jay Patel grew up in the same village in India.
• Raj and Anshia Prajapati. Raj Prajapati co-owns Giant Foods at 580 North Davis Drive in Warner Robins with Kenny Patel.

A grand opening sale and the market’s hours

The market is currently running a grand opening sale on a variety of about 40 products such as 32.5 pounds of Swad Canola Oil for $29.99 and 4 pounds of Laxmi Desi Besan Gram Flour for $4.99. Sale prices are expected to remain in place until the end of the month, Malay Patel said.

The market, which celebrated its grand opening Wednesday, has experienced a few hiccups since its soft opening a week ago Saturday.

“If we make mistakes, just let us know,” Patel said. “We don’t mind owning our mistakes.”

Hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.

This story was originally published April 18, 2025 at 11:16 AM.