The Hindu Business Line : Young entrée-preneurs

It's a Saturday night in Delhi's upmarket Vasant Vihar as Hookah — a three-tier Lebanese eatery cum sheesha bar — starts to fill up with the Capital's swish set. A whiff of perfume suffuses the air as the well kitted brigade glides into the eatery. The restaurant's owner — 20-something Rajnish Malik — in the meantime, is the epitome of a multitasker as he greets a customer here, navigates another to the sheesha there, chats up the chef, advises a PYT about which dish to order...

In a way, Malik is archetypal of Delhi's newbie food entrepreneurs, a breed of spunky youngsters whose hunger for success has them biting into the Capital's exponentially growing F&B pie. Food is indeed big business in Delhi — one of India's two gastronomic capitals (the other being Mumbai) — and it's buzzing with youthful restaurateurs who have hundreds eating out of their hands.

The talent to cook? An encyclopaedic knowledge of food? Years of sweat in the trade? These seem to matter not. What do matter though are the `smarts', which these entrepreneurs seem to possess in abundance.

"When I wanted to launch my restaurant five years ago, my bank loan was rejected five times," laughs the cherubic-faced Rahul Makkar, owner of Mercurries, a standalone eatery in New Friends Colony. Well, if Makkar can afford to laugh now it's because the 30-year-old Delhi University graduate ("sans any hotel management training") owns three foodlets in Delhi, drives his own silver Mercedes Benz and is diversifying into corporate kitchens. His first kitchen debuted in Noida recently.

Winning hands-on

It's purely coincidental though that on his way up the quirky entrepreneurial ladder, Makkar has had to slog it out as manager, cashier, usher, waiter, even bathroom cleaner! As he puts it, in between answering his forever-beeping mobile, "Whatever else you may lack, as a restaurateur you just can't lack the capacity to really slog it out."

Ask Nishan Sinha, owner of the upscale Masala Junction, who launched his eatery a couple of years ago with Rs 30-lakh bank loan. While setting up his establishment, Sinha had no qualms about rolling up his sleeves to do the occasional dishes. Or double as interior designer/stylist/conceptualiser for his outfit. "You have to be hands-on if you want your project to be a success," says Sinha who has a hotel management degree. He has also put in a six-year stint at the Taj, during which the hotel launched 14 restaurants across India! And it helped that Sinha began when he was barely into his twenties.

Sachin Gogia too began early. At 22. Straight out of college, the greenhorn was weaned on the family catering business before he plunged into entrepreneurship, along with his brother, by opening Red Coral on Delhi's outskirts. Elated with the success of its first eatery, the duo has now launched Nasha, a pub, which is rocking nightlife in southern Delhi thanks to its celebrity-embellished evenings.

Professionalism pays

But what really drives the owners of these relatively under-capitalised but overachieving eateries? Most of them are first-generation restaurateurs, not exactly born into wealth, not even with relevant qualifications, yet they have displayed remarkable staying power in a business where outfits down shutters even before you can utter `open sesame'. Not only that, many of these youngsters are expanding/diversifying with aplomb.

Dhiraj Arora, 31, MD of Mahima Hospitality, who straddles three eateries — Shalom, a Mediterranean lounge bar; Laidback Waters, a seafood eatery; and Italic, an Italian food outfit — thinks he has the answer. Professionalism, he says, is the key to success as a food entrepreneur. Though Arora learnt it the hard way — when his very first project, a pub called No Entry bombed and had to be shut down in the first year — the youth smartened up soon after the fall. He dusted his jeans and simply got on with the task of launching his other projects, this time involving professionals. Today he outsources specialists from various fields — F&B, interiors, services, kitchen and administration — for his three outlets. And indeed the success of his ventures — despite their range — proves that Arora has got his recipe right.

Background no bar

A background in food does not seem mandatory at all to `get the recipe right'. The vastly varied backgrounds of the trio of Deepak Sharma (export), Kanav Grover (aviation) and Tarun Sood (software), who own the hugely successful `It's Greek to Me', proves this. High on the celebrity quotient (Priyanka Gandhi, Nandita Das and top-notch fashion designers are patrons), the eatery rocks with its exotic culinary offerings and appropriate wines at its Santirini bar. The trio is now opening a second outlet in Defence Colony, and has plans for other cities as well.

The brother-sister duo of Arjun and Piya Puri (both under 30) too tasted success with its very first venture — Punjabi By Nature, famous for its robust but inventive Punjabi cuisine: makki ki roti, luscious saag, gravied meats and vodka-infused golgappas! Such was the overwhelming response to the Noida outlet that the Puris soon opened a second outfit in Vasant Vihar. They are now opening a third in Gurgaon.

Offbeat ingredients

And undoubtedly, as business experts point out, the primary ingredient for the success of these entrepreneurs is their ability to think out of the box. Hence, no traditional restaurant template for them. Break the mould and push the envelope seems to be their mantra. For instance, when Malik launched Hookah, he tweaked old concepts to introduce a cuisine that would be exotic enough for the Indian palate but not too far out to be called experimental. He then added a sheesha bar, live entertainment over weekends and promotional events as the proverbial cherries on his cake. "In today's cutthroat F&B market," says Malik, "it's simply not enough to serve good food. You have to turn old concepts on their head, reinvent and keep the customer interested."

And the rigorously feted `customer' is reciprocating wholeheartedly by thronging these new restaurants where the owners are having their cake and eating it too.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

More Stories on : Entrepreneurship | Hotels

Stories in this Section
Savour the sweet life

Young entrée-preneurs

Pennywise