A popular Natomas restaurant will soon be calling Midtown home as the owners look to expand their business.

Mati’s Indian Express, 3880 Truxel Rd., will close its current location Sept. 30 and move to the Fremont building at 16th and P streets before reopening Nov. 1 as Mati’s. The new, 2,200-square-foot location will double the restaurant’s size.

“We want to expand,” said Ranjani Prasad, the establishment’s owner and main cook. “Most of our customers are from Midtown, and we want to be more centrally located.”

It will be the first move in the restaurant’s five-year history.

Prasad is from the Indian community in Fiji, and she said she learned to cook at a young age from her mother, who taught her traditional Indian recipes.

Despite other Indian restaurants already established in Midtown, Prasad said her restaurant concept is unique.

“We’re not sit-down, and we’re not a buffet,” she said. “We’re more like a Panda Express, where people can see what we have and sample it. When people have a sample, they never leave without food.”

Prasad said the names of many Indian dishes are so unfamiliar to many of her first-time customers that she added labels on the glass so people would have a better idea of what they were looking at.

For example, “Lamb Vindaloo” is described as “lamb chunks cooked in a variety of spices.” The sign also advises customers that the dish is gluten-free.

With a strong selection of gluten-free, vegetarian and vegan offerings, Prasad said she has many customers who come for meals that aren’t as common at other restaurants.

One of those customers is Cosmo Mullins of Rio Linda, who said he comes to the restaurant once a week and plans to follow it to the new location.

“They have a lot of vegetarian stuff,” Mullins said. “That’s really lacking in other places.”

Another regular customer is Irina Nath of Las Vegas, who grew up in Sacramento and visits two or three times per month.

“When I come home to visit, I want home-style Indian food, and this is where I get it,” said Nath, who is of Indian descent. “I’m a vegetarian, and I come here whenever I come home because of the variety.”

In addition to the current fare offered at the restaurant, Prasad said she will be able to add a few items to round out the menu – most notably grilled meats, grilled vegetables and brown rice.

The new 2,200-square-foot location that used to house Togo’s will be about double the size of Prasad’s current building and will also allow her to put the soda fountain where it is accessible to the public, contain restrooms and “just make things more convenient.”

Another addition to the restaurant will be beer – once the alcohol license is obtained.

“We will carry Indian beers,” Prasad said, “and we’ll have some domestic ones, too, but we aren’t sure which yet.”

Ranjani Prasad’s son, Shawn Prasad, said he expects the Midtown location to be more appealing to the majority of their customers, who are generally in the under-30 crowd.

“A lot of them would rather walk to us than drive their cars,” Shawn Prasad said.

From Nov. 1, the restaurant will be open at 1601 16th St. from 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. Monday-Saturday, but hours may be adjusted based on need.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.