Profiles of Innovation

Anita Jaisinghani finds her entrepreneurial niche with innovative Indian food

Anita Jasinghani, owner, Pondicheri

Photo by John Carrithers

In the United States, immigrant entrepreneurs have often turned to the restaurant business as way to realize the American dream. In many older cities, European specialties were favored; in Houston the array is much more global, reflecting the city's incredible diversity.

South Asian cuisine is one the many ethnic foods that has attracted a following in the Bayou City. Anita Jaisinghani has led the way by infusing the cuisine of her home country of India with local ingredients.

"Being an entrepreneur is taking an opportunity to do something interesting and new. For me that's what it is. It's not about just filling a gap somewhere."

In the second of a continuing CultureMap series, Profiles of Innovation, Jaisinghani tells videographers Douglas Newman and John Carrithers how when she left India at age 20 with her new husband more than two decades ago, she began cooking within a week after arrival in the West as a way to keep memories of her homeland fresh in her mind.

"The ingredients were not there, so I had to come up with my own version in everything," she explains. "That's when I realized I could do a lot with what I found locally."

A decade ago, she opened Indika, an Indian fusion restaurant on lower Westheimer that has won raves from such national publications as Gourmet and The New York Times. A few months ago, she added Pondicheri, a more casual Indian eatery in West Ave. She hasn't taken a day off since the new restaurant opened, but she has no regrets about the entrepreneurial life.

"The reward is seeing people enjoy what I do....The biggest reward is seeing the same people come in every day," she says.

As she explains in this video, "Being an entrepreneur is taking an opportunity to do something interesting and new. For me that's what it is. It's not about just filling a gap somewhere."

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Jobs report

Texas clocks in as No. 7 best state to find a job, new report says

Photo by The Jopwell Collection on Unsplash

It's easier to find a job in Texas than in nearly any other state.

If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

While Abbott proclaimed Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

Austin — 3.9 percent
Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
San Antonio — 4.4 percent
Houston — 5 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.

This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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