Irving restaurant owners persist amid challenges, tragedy after losing a loved one

Taha Sultan and his family are holding out hope they can keep Sultani Grill & Burgers open. The 32-year-old continues to face an uphill battle at the Irving restaurant.

Sultan shared the restaurant's story with CBS News Texas.  His younger brother, Maaz Tariq Sultan, opened the restaurant on Esters Road in 2024 with their mother, energized and with a dream for success. The Sultani name is derived from their own surname.

"Sultani means 'kings of kings,'" Sultan said. "Like the number one burger spot in DFW. Number one spot of the Pakistani BBQ Grill in the DFW area."

Struggles and tragedy

Customers have come in and supported the restaurant, but it hasn't been easy. Sultan said the city's $17 million construction project on the roadway came through, impacting the business.

"It just changed everybody's habit of getting or being on Esters Road," he said. "So everybody taking different routes, going the back way from [Highway]161 or exiting earlier, taking that line."

Sultan said it "pretty much ruined the traffic flow". But tragedy would also hit the family. By December 2024, Sultan said his younger brother likely faced the mounting stresses of owning a restaurant. On December 28, 2024, Taha Sultan said Maaz Sultan cooked up a smashburger for a customer, one of the ones Maaz had worked so hard to creat.

Maaz Sultan took his own life inside of the restaurant, Taha said. Maaz was 21 years old.

"My dad was there that night here at the restaurant," Taha Sultan said. "[Maaz] told my dad 'I'll see you at home'. My dad went home." 

Keeping the work alive

Sultan said that at times, it's hard for him to come into Sultani Grill; he still expects to see his little brother walk in.

"[Maaz] started this place, and we were doing great," Sultan said. "We had big dreams of where we could take this place and everything."

"And then all of a sudden, we had no idea that Irving was initiating this project of redoing Esters," Sultan added. "If we had known before, we probably would have made different decisions beforehand." 

Sultan and his family are still in the building, trying to wait it out and hopeful customers will return. He added that it's hard to make $500 a day during the week and that rent for their space is behind. The Sultan family even launched a Sadaqah Jariyah – an Islamic tradition of benevolent, charitable giving to honor those who have passed away – that is ongoing and voluntary.

The goal: to make Maaz Sultan's dream come true and make Sultani's a success story.

"He barely even got to see where Sultani could be," Taha Sultan said.