TALKING SHOP: From India To The US, Via Fiji And Canada - Bhindi Jewelers' Journey Of Dreams

(MENAFN- Market Press Release) March 16, 2026 1:34 am - The journey of Bhindi Jewelers is like no other. Steeped in a rich ancestry of goldsmiths, the Bhindi family migrated from India to Fiji in 1929, before relocating to Vancouver to open a jewelry store in the 1970s.

In 1985 that they moved to the States, specifically to Southern California, with a mind to serving the growing South Asian community there. Ashwin Bhindi, from the family's third generation, is part of the team tasked with steering the ship today, along with his cousins Ronil, Ketan, and Sanit. He spoke with Watch Insider's Daniel Malins about collaborations with brands and thriving under the pressure to improve.

Watch Insider: What impact did inflated tariffs have on your business last year?

Ashwin Bhindi: The tariffs were a bit tumultuous, to say the least. We all found out when we were in Geneva [Watches & Wonders] and it caused an absolute frenzy during the show. It unfortunately took away from the allure of being in a show of that caliber because all everybody was thinking about was how to react. Some of the micro brands we deal with literally went into their headquarters that night, packed a shipment large enough to supply the US for the remainder of the year, and shipped it. Obviously, there were other large-scale brands that didn't have the ability to react quite that quickly.

I'm glad we've reduced the tariffs, but they created nerves all throughout the year with customers wondering,“Should I even be buying right now?”

WI: Stepping away from the business issues of today, can you tell me about the origins of Bhindi and what roads led to now having multiple premises across America?

AB: Officially, our story starts in 1929 when my grandfather migrated from India to the Fiji Islands. My uncle, who is one of three principals in our company, has essentially embraced the role of family historian and confirmed that our family has been goldsmiths for at least 18-19 generations and potentially as many as 25. The beauty of India is they have an amazing system of bookkeeping and maintaining manuscripts of family history dating back generations. These books are meticulously stored amongst specific households, and these families continue this tradition, keeping this beautiful history alive and current. One can only hope these books have not been damaged or destroyed over time.

In the early 70s my father and his two brothers, who grew up working in the store in the Fiji Islands, decided to expand internationally, to Vancouver. My father, at the age of 16, went to Vancouver to start the store, and got laughed at by a lot of banks who said:“You're a 16 year old kid asking for a loan, I think you're out of your mind.” Fortunately, he was able to find a bank that saw his vision, raise the money, and open a store right in the heart of Vancouver.

We stayed in Vancouver throughout the 70s and all of my generation, the third generation, of Bhindi Jewelers was born in Vancouver. My father then decided to establish our first footprint in the US, in Southern California in the city of Artesia in 1985. My father figured that, because our primary focus at the time was South Asian jewelry, we could be an anchor for the growing South Asian population in Los Angeles and Orange County as Artesia sits between them. There were a lot of professionals coming over-doctors, lawyers, engineers, entrepreneurs-but they had nowhere to shop and maintain their cultural identity.

In the same strip mall as our store, my father also coordinated to bring in an Indian grocery store, clothing store, restaurant, and an Indian music/video store where families could get a taste of home. The strip mall became a one-stop shop and we were pulling people from Sacramento to San Diego. People would make a full weekend of coming to the area, and would stock up on groceries, buy Indian outfits from the clothing store, and get jewelry from us.

That humble 800 square foot location did so well that we eventually expanded to three stores. We opened a location in Berkeley in San Francisco, which inevitably moved to Newark, built a larger showroom in Artesia, still primarily focusing on 22 karat jewelry, and even opened a New York store in Jackson Heights.

The Jackson Heights store did phenomenally well. My uncle says that in its heyday, clients would be trying to purchase new inventory before he could even tag it. It was also unfortunately at a point in time where Jackson Heights simply became too dangerous and my grandfather decided,“No more, the risk is not worth the reward,” and we closed the store shortly after.

We'd worked hard to build our brand on the East Coast and didn't want to abandon it. Right around this time, Atlanta won the bid for the [1996] Olympics, and we thought it had great growth potential, similar to how we originally viewed Artesia, just on a much larger geographic scale. At the time, there was a large Indian population in Georgia and its neighboring states, and they really had nowhere to shop for Indian jewelry. Opening the store in Atlanta gave them a central hub to go to and to this day we still have people that spend a weekend out there to get high-quality pieces.

Throughout this time, my father and uncles, driven by their ambition to brand Bhindi throughout the US, had three different teams going to cities across the country almost every weekend. These teams would attend mini conventions, bridal shows, and even Indian concerts, setting up temporary booths with product for sale, to spread the Bhindi name nationwide. That's how we built our brand in the South Asian community in the US. It was very organic, not through heavy marketing, just true 'boots on the ground' work.

My wife is from Portland, and when we first started seeing each other, she told me,“My parents would always buy jewelry from you guys when you came out there.” To this day she has Bhindi boxes from the early–mid 90s. We're very blessed in the sense that my father and uncles had the foresight to create Bhindi branding across the country and have these physical pop-ups and roadshows.

Fast forward to the early 2000's, and our Artesia store expanded again to two-stories, with the top floor dedicated to fine diamond jewelry and the bottom with 22 karat gold. We were fortunate to partner with Rolex as our first watch anchor in the late 90s and we blossomed with them quickly as we had a very large appetite amongst our clientele for the 18 karat pieces, especially the 36mm Day-Date, the 28mm Lady-Datejust. We've had some really wonderful growth with the brand over the years. Both Glendale and Artesia have a beautiful Rolex presence in our stores which elevate the overall atmosphere.

The Glendale location, which opened in 2013, was our first foray into a mall, compared to our free-standing destination stores. Glendale was also our first venture into a non-South Asian clientele market. We really took a leap of faith on Glendale because only three brands saw our vision – Rolex, TAG Heuer, and Montblanc. Everything else we had in there was jewelry. Only later, after we had proved our success, did we start getting more attention from other brands.

Our third generation has been the driving force behind the watch expansion for Bhindi. None of us had originally intended to join the business, except for my eldest cousin Sunny, who always appreciated the business, probably due to his dad nudging him and making sure he came to the store to earn his allowance. The rest of us had ventured off into our own realms. My cousin Ron, who I now work with in Glendale, was in real estate; my brother was a corporate attorney; I was in marketing. We're very blessed to say that we all have different interests and backgrounds that we were able to bring to the table to help expand the business.

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