Chrome Hospitality to hire 500 people as part of expansion plans

Chrome Hospitality, a casual dining restaurant chain, will expand its workforce by adding around 500 people at the outlet level for the financial year 2023- 2024. The hiring is in line with the recently announced plans to open seven new restaurants and a hotel in Goa, according to two top executives of the company.

Currently, it operates seven restaurants in Mumbai and has a workforce of around 420 people. Pawan Shahri, one of the three co-founders told businessline that this year they will start their first hotel along with five restaurants in Mumbai.

The immediate expansion mode is due to access to discounted real estate in Mumbai, which otherwise was at an all-time high, and access to big pool of workforce, said the company. On an average, the Chrome’s restaurants see a monthly footfall of 10,000–12,0000 people per store.

Elaborating on the company’s first hotel in Goa, Dhaval Udeshi, co-founder, said, “the hotel will have 10 rooms and four room villas, spread over 30,000 square feet. Although Goa is known for its nightlife, we observed that there are people who come to unwind and mellow out, and that is how we got to the idea of building a hotel with the concept of slow living.”

It will offer various activities, such as cooking classes, pottery classes, cycling in the room, and a beach cleaning drive. Additionally, “we also want to create a good food and beverage culture, and eventually we want to expand this across the country and abroad,” he added.

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Though the hotel chain plans to expand to newer geographies across the country, the founders feel that they still have room for expansion in Mumbai.  

“We know the pulse of the market very well. Moreover, we initially want to focus on one city, as there is still enough room to cover Mumbai. For now, our primary focus is on one market, and we’ll look at expanding to others such as Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Delhi,” noted Udeshi.

Similarly, Shahri said that the intention is to create brands in Mumbai and then introduce those in the other cities.

Revenues and funding

In FY22, Chrome generated ₹56.4 crore revenue and likely to close FY24 with ₹134 crore.

To date, the company said that it raised funds through private business families, high-net-worth individuals (HNIs), and some bank debt. “Going forward, with the approved profits of the company, we’re trying to invest more and sort of retain more equity rather than diluting it.” For its expansion, the company has announced an investment of ₹50 crore for FY24.

The founders stated that they will continue to use the current investment pool and there are enough internal accruals because of profitability. “Our institutional round will be in the next two years, that is sometime in 2025, and we are preparing for the same. The idea is to go straight to Series A instead of seed funding.”

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