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Subway Owner Tastes Success In Ruskin

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By LOIS KINDLE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 2, 2008

RUSKIN - RUSKIN - Forty-six years ago, Shahena Esat's journey to South Shore began in the African country of Malawi. The path led her next to Zimbabwe, then to England and finally to the rural community where she would start and operate a business of her own.

Known to locals as "Shay," she has co-owned a Subway restaurant in the Sun Point Shopping Center since 1990.
Shay was born in the Republic of Malawi to grocer Ebrahim Esat and his wife, Aisha, who had moved to Africa from their homeland in India. A year later, the family packed up and moved to Zimbabwe, where Shay grew up. When she was 15, she and her mother moved to Lancashire, England, where they lived with relatives.

"We came in shifts," Shay said of the family moving there. Before her father and siblings moved, Shay took a job "packing in a pharmaceutical company to put food on the table." Once the rest of the family was safely in England, they moved to Leicester, where Shay graduated from high school.

"I planned to go to college in England, but I met Ahmed," she said.

Ahmed Sidat was her future husband. Not long after their meeting, in December 1979, the couple tied the knot in a marriage arranged by their parents. Shay apparently didn't mind.

"I thought he was cute," she said. "I was happy because I liked him."
Shay came to the United States in 1990 to operate the Subway in Ruskin. Ahmed Sidat had come six months earlier to supervise the the restaurant's construction, and then she came to join him.

"I didn't want to come at first," Shay said.

"We originally wanted to get into hotels," she said, "But we decided to start off slow with the sub shop."

With friends in the Brandon area, the couple settled there. Eighteen years later, they are still there. Ahmed went into the hotel business in 1999 and co-owns SpringHill Suites and Country Inn & Suites in Brandon, and Shay has become a Subway artist extraordinaire.

Selling about 200 sandwiches a day, she estimates she has made more than 1 million subs in the past 18 years.

"In the beginning, I was very shy, she said. "I never imagined working in food service, but I've grown to love it. I truly enjoy my customers."

GETTING TO KNOW

WHO: Shahena "Shay" Sidat
AGE: 46

WHAT: Owner/operator of Subway restaurant, 3028 E. College Ave., Ruskin, since 1990

EMPLOYS: Five - four full time and one part time

PERSONAL: Husband, Ahmed; two children, Riyaaz, 24, and Shareen, 21

BIRTHPLACE: Malawi

LIVES: Valrico

LANGUAGES: Gujarati Indian; Bulawayo African; and English

Reporter Lois Kindle can be reached at (813) 865-1553 or lkindle@tampatrib.com.

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