When Tarsem Singh spoke to the Lismore App he had just returned from the grocery shopping. He had 40 kgs of rice and 60 kgs of onions. These, along with numerous other ingredients, were about to be prepped by Tarsem and his staff of 3 for free dinners for the people of Lismore.

Brown Boys Indian Restaurant on Magellan Street have cooked up hundreds of free dinners in the last two days as a gesture of good will to Lismore in lockdown.

Today their target is 1000 free meals. Home delivered if necessary.

“They send me their address on my phone, and their menu choice, we go to people’s house and deliver there. Sunday we did 300 meals. Yesterday we did 500 meals,” Tarsem explained.

“We let people come and get take away also, if they can come, otherwise we home deliver,” he added.

Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? But apparently we are now living in a world where freshly cooked authentic Indian curry – a choice of meat or vegetarian – is delivered to your door for free.

Tarsem says he intends to continue doing it until lockdown is over.

“..as long as we are in lockdown, doesn’t matter how long – one week, two weeks, one month, we’ll do it every day,” he said.

Mr Singh, who is usually based in Sydney where he owns another Brown Boyz outlet in Blacktown, also owns the Diamond Car Wash on Conway St and three other car wash sites in Sydney.

Tarsem explained that all his other businesses are not currently operational due to the lockdown both here and in Sydney.

“There is no income coming from anywhere but we are still trying to do what we can here,” he said.

“We have done donations to temples and things like that, but this is the first time we have done something like this. We can see there is a need,” he added.

To keep up with demand Tarsem has been shopping for supplies at numerous local businesses.

“We’re cooking about 40 kgs of rice a day. And its hard at the moment because you can’t just go to one shop and buy everything you have to to go here and there…they (shops) have been short on stock,” he said.

All the Brown Boyz ingredients are locally sourced, with milk and cream from Norco and meat from Bidfood.

When asked how they can afford to give away so much food, Tarsem said “we have worked hard the last 10 or 11 years, with whatever savings we have we like to help people.”

Tarsem said that people have been very grateful when the delivery staff arrive with the food at their house.

“The people are happy, they give blessings.”

“Starting today or tomorrow I will put two or three tables at the front and put the containers there so when people are walking, they can take home. Some people don’t use facebook so they have no idea what’s happening,” Tarsem added.

Today’s target of a thousand meals will have the small team of staff – Raj, Ravi and Basant - working from late last night and possibly into early morning and through the day preparing gravies and other ingredients as everything is made fresh.

Tarsem’s car wash opened on Conway Street at the beginning of 2019 and Brown Boyz opened on Magellan Street July last year.

Tarsem said there was no particular faith or religious belief connected to this charitable act.

“I’m not really a religious person,” he said.

Lismore may well be converted to believe in free curry after such generosity.

Today’s menu for free food

Vegetarian – Fried Rice with Boiled Vegetables

Non-Vegetarian – Fried Rice with Drumsticks cooked in onion and tomato gravy

Call the restaurant 6621 4124 or message 0403 654 690