Forty years ago, Vijay Selhi, who was born and raised in India, started working at a McDonald’s restaurant in Somerville for $3 an hour. Today, he and his sons Cherag and Anurag own and operate 18 McDonald’s locations in greater Boston, including three in Dorchester. For the Selhis, this accumulation of riches is less about selling tens of millions of Big Macs and French fries over the years than it is about providing support for families living the way he did during his days as a minumum wage worker.

“I’ve learned a lot from McDonald’s about how to serve my community,” said Vijay. “I was able to send both my kids to college and have a house to live in and feed my family. If I can do this, I can help other people do the same thing.”

Vijay arrived in Boston in 1983 and finding work under the Golden Arches was not the typical route immigrants took, said son Cherag, now 30. “Our family back home is from a village in India. A lot of people who were immigrating at the time were not going into jobs such as McDonald’s. Seeing that Vijay was doing something different from the greater part of our community was rewarding.”

After graduating from Suffolk University, the sons began working at the Somerville location as crew members then progressed to managerial roles and eventually took over ownership. Cherag and Anurag had shown that they were good fits as business partners with their father. 

In an interview with the Reporter, they spoke easily, almost interchangeably, about how they go about their business day to day.

“We’re all kind of wearing different hats and we’re managing different parts of the business, but that’s how we can stick around as a family and be successful,” said Cherag. For his part, the 27-year-old Anurag identified their roles as being on the ground at the restaurants. “The best part is that you’ll see us in the stores a lot, we’re more in the stores than at the office. The employees see us and it’s great to know everybody by their first name,” he said.

The Selhis don’t just know their employees’ names, they say they care deeply about them as well and think of them as family members. “When we walk into the store, we’re not necessarily asking about numbers and performance,” said Cherag. “The first things we ask [are questions like] ‘How is your daughter doing? How is your son? I know your mother just got here from El Salvador, how is she doing adjusting?’ Our conversation always starts with family and then we can talk business after.”

Added Vijay: “We are there every week, every day in the store and meeting with the customers and our employees. We don’t call them the crew or anything like that; just ‘our people.’ We are all together.”

Vijay Selhi is shown with his sons Cherag and Anurag at the counter of the Gallivan Boulevard McDonald’s location, which re-opened last year after a major renovation project.

Anurag suggested that their “we, not me” mentality is what allows the Selhis to successfully own and operate 19 restaurants. “We are very prideful of the brand and the arches, but internally we operate like any mom-and-pop shop does because each store has its own profile. We curate a family type of energy to the stores with our crew and managers.”

Family members continually stress the word “support in conversation. They say the family-like work atmosphere is a result of the support they provide their employees. One example is their incentive program for their busiest time at their locations. It’s called “100 Days of Summer.” Beginning in June, they team up with local supermarkets to provide food staples such as fruit, rice, and beans to “our people.” Going the extra mile is the Selhi family way, they say.

Whether it’s delivering food on Fridays or having Christmas parties for employees, being with the staff is the kind of work that Anurag enjoys. “When your feet are on the ground, you put yourself in other people’s shoes,” he said. “It goes a long way that people do appreciate.”

Showing up and being on the job working at the locations on a regular basis means the Selhis are working with a widely diverse group of people. “Every store in the company is like a melting pot, like America,” said Vijay. “You may find 20 different nationalities in one store. Anybody can come to this country; anybody can have a dream like I had a dream. We will work with their needs.”

Cherag believes their locations in Dorchester have a positive impact on the entire community. “All of the Dorchester locations prior to us buying them had shorter closing times. For us to extend the permit for the stores became an opportunity where we could provide more hours to the employees and we could serve food to the Dorchester community at a later hour,” he explained.

“Being that a lot of the community works one, two, or three jobs, having dinner together is not easy. Because there is the platform of convenience and delivery and ready-on-arrival pickup with McDonald’s, we’re able to extend those hours for the community.”

Vijay, whose first purchase was the McDonald’s in Codman Square, added that “four or five years ago, employees who worked for us were used to having multiple jobs but now we apply them really good wages. They can live on one job, and they can make a good and healthy paycheck.”

While they know that Vijay appreciates the value of all of the family’s stores, his sons recognize how meaningful it was for him to become owner of the Somerville location. “I think the one from a success perspective,” said Cherag, “was when he ended up buying the Somerville location where [many years before] he had walked in and essentially said, ‘You don’t need to pay me, let me show you what I can do.’ It was a full circle moment for him in that’s where we all started.”

What does the future hold for the Selhis and their enterprise? Vijay said he won’t be stopping anytime soon. “I will stay until I can’t walk. People think McDonald’s is only a hamburger business. This is a family business.”