The chain traces its origins to "Hotel India", which opened at the L-Block in Connaught Place, New Delhi in 1934, by "Nirula Brothers", L.C. and M. Nirula; it had 12 rooms, a restaurant and a bar. In 1940, on request of the Indian Coffee Board, they opened the Indian Coffee Shop in Janpath introducing espresso coffee, which became an instant success. Soon afterwards they launched two theme restaurants —‘La ’, a Hungarian restaurant; and ‘Gufa’, an Indian restaurant. In the 1950s, the 'Chinese Room' was opened, the oldest Chinese restaurant in Delhi. It is still on its original premises. The 1970s saw Nirula's venturing into the fast food business with the opening of what became Delhi's first fast food restaurant in 1977, to which was later added: a pastry shop, snack bar, hot shoppe, and an ice cream parlour. A subsequent addition was the adjacent, waiter-served "Potpourri" salad bar. By that time Nirula's was already a CP landmark, offering Western fast food such as burgers, pizzas, and submarines, plus an ice cream parlour offering 21 flavours. flight Expansion of the fast food business continued in the next two decades, with the opening of the ‘Central Kitchen’ and at the Chanakya cinema complex, Chanakyapuri, Defence Colony, Noida, Vasant Vihar, and various other locations in the NCR. Before the arrival of several international restaurant chains in the 1990s, Nirula's remained a major draw for young people in the capital. In the following years, even after chains like McDonald's made inroads into its share, Nirula's retained 40 per cent of the Delhi market in 2000. Even then, facing stiff competition from Nirula's, McDonald's had to "Indianise" its menu to suit Indian palates, while on its end, Nirula's added competitive pricing and revamped its interiors. To diversify its business, the group opened hotels, one in Noida and another in Panipat, and set up food processing plants in Noida, near Delhi. Nirula's was also the first Western-style fast food restaurant in Kathmandu, Nepal, where it had two outlets, the main branch in Durbar Marg —where there currently is a KFC and a Pizza Huton top, and a smaller branch on New Road. The best selling items were pizzas and ice cream. While both were already available in Kathmandu, they were offered at premium restaurants as gourmet versions and not as fast food.
Through the 1990s Nirula's faced heated competition from local and international fast food outlets and by 1995 there was only one Nirula's left in the city. The quality also went down and it soon closed its doors for good.
While Kathmandu is now teeming with fast food outlets, many still reminiscence about Nirula's as the place that they had their first pizza in. Their most popular pizza was the salami pizza, also their cheapest meat pizza. . In 2007, the original CP outlet moved to K-Block, Connaught Place, while the adjacent Potpourri moved to N block, Outer Circle. Also in 2007, Nirula's opened India first ice cream museum inside its ice cream factory in Noida. In the same year, the chain introduced three new outlet formats, including "Nirula's Express", Food Court Unit and Ice-Cream Kiosks, with the first Express outlet opening at the Delhi Airport. Today the chain has outlets across North India, in Dehradun, Indore, Meerut, Mussoorie, Panipat, Pathankot, and Udaipur.
