Delhi Gets First 100% Raw Vegan Cafe

Starting any business isn't easy but starting a restaurant is a totally different ballgame altogether. There are so many things to consider before you even start.

Choosing the Wrong Concept

First, you need to visualize the concept. A lot of people love food and have travelled a lot, which is where they make the mistake of thinking they can open a multi-cuisine restaurant with 3-4 of the well-known dishes from various places. But, that doesn't really work. To be successful, you need to stand out and be unique!

Tip: Choose ONE cuisine that will distinguish you from your competitors and ensure that you make it the best!

Also Read: Restaurant Startups Must Know These Things Before Starting Business In Hyderabad

Saving Cost on Staff, Especially the Head Chef

The second most important thing is finding a level-headed-chef who specializes in the cuisine that you choose for the restaurant. A good chef is easy to find but you need someone who doesn't just cook well but is also focused on the quality of the products, hygiene levels, training innovation, and respect.

Tip: Find a chef with all of the mentioned qualities –if you do find one, hire her/him immediately and never let them go.

Getting Confused

Third, you need to decide which segment you want to focus on. With so many concepts in the restaurant business today, getting confused is one of the reasons restaurateurs may face a setback.

Tip: Personally, for me, Fast Casual is the way to go – smaller outlets, simple but good food, low overheads and a huge number of customers.

Must Read: Five Strategies That Restaurant Startups Must Adopt To Grow

Not Including the Location Rentals in Restaurant Budget

This might just be the most crucial factor to be considered. Rentals are the most important fixed cost in a consumer business. You need to avoid getting lured into opting for a great location while ignoring the rent. Getting a decent footfall in the first six months but in a high rental space will kill the business.

Tip: Pick a place where you know you will be able to survive even if you reach just 50% occupancy at peak hours in your cash flows.

Not Giving Importance To Training

This goes without saying – staff and training, both are very important. Considering this is the restaurant industry, you need to ensure that your staff can provide the best possible service and this is not possible without training.

Tip: Develop the right training module; it will happen with lots of trials and errors but your staff needs the right training support.

Krishna Gupta is Managing Director of 1441 Pizzeria. 1441 Pizzeria was established to bring the authenticity of Italian wood-fired pizza to India.

There are lots of challenges to be faced when you come out of a hotel. When you start a restaurant business on your own, you have to manage everything. Solving challenges is interesting. Here are a few things the owners of a restaurant startup must know before they start their business in Hyderabad.

Patience is a Must

A restaurant is such a business where you put a lot of money and cannot expect the returns to come immediately. People have to have the patience to deal with it, and they should have the capacity to run the restaurant for the next 6-8 months from the pocket. You have to wait for a long time to get a return. It’s not easy like other businesses.

Also Read: 10-Step Checklist to Open a Bistro in Mumbai

Dependency on Manpower

Most of the people depend on the chefs or other people like service staff at their restaurants. There are many restaurateurs who are unable to manage the cost or staff; they sometimes feel that their restaurant is about to shut and are willing to seek help. Getting good manpower is becoming a challenge. You need to trust the service staff, even if you aren’t at the restaurant. Many times, new and especially low-budget restaurants mix up with the roles of the staff, which is okay. But the challenge lies in hiring the best and trustworthy.

Rentals

Rental aspects are important too. When people put things together they only look for the costs involved in building up the restaurant. They forget salary wages are around 24-26% of the revenue of the restaurant. The rental, sometimes, can go up to 20% also; all these have to be counted. Your pocket has to be deep enough to bear all the expenses.

Location

A location should be a prime concern. It is not that people do not travel for food. I have instances where people travel 25 km and call us while on the way that “there is traffic and we might get late”. I personally serve them when my staff leaves for the day. You need to be very careful while choosing a location keeping an eye on the footfall available in that area - is it a business estate or a residential.

Also Read: Restaurateur Shivam Sehgal Sees An Untapped Business Opportunity In Delhi’s Dwarka

All these things you need to keep in mind.

Chef Chalapathi Rao, fondly known as Chef Challu, is one of the finest chefs serving South Indian cuisines in Hyderabad and abroad. Click to Read Full Interview

As told to Sara Khan

Partnering with her husband in business, Sheetal Shah defines strength with a positive vision of success and innovation. Managing the BKC outlet of Drifters Breweries, she is a woman who is fascinated by the world of craft beers and the bubbles in each brew. The daily operations side of the brew bar is constant learning for Sheetal, who hopes to open other craft beer serving outlets in major cities in Maharashtra. Excitement and vigour are her cornerstones as she appreciates how locals today love to experiment with different types of craft beers.

In an interview with Restaurant India, Sheetal Shah, Managing Director at Drifters Tap Station, says Mumbai is a growing market for microbrewery business. 

About Drifters Tap Station 

Drifters Tap Station was founded by me and my husband Nayan Shah. Our company was born out of the need to bring Eastern European handcrafted beers to the city. Roaming in the streets of many western countries like Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia in search of the best beer led us to the doorsteps of Honza Kocka, our Brew Master, from Prague. Our journey led us to name the venture Drifters Tap Station which encapsulates everything the name stands for and more. 

Role as the Managing Director 

My role as the Managing Director of the company is to manage operations of retail outlets that come under the parent company - Drifters Breweries. Drifters Tap Station is the first venue opened recently in BKC and my role there involves managing all operations, maintaining the food and service quality and ensuring that all patrons who visit the venue leave with unique memories and come back for the quality product offered. 

Secret Recipe to Success

Hard work and efforts in right directions at the right time. 

Competition in the Industry Segment 

Mumbai is a growing market for microbreweries. Beer is a drink preferred by everyone be it a weekday drink with colleagues, the weekend with friends or a lazy Sunday brunch. Microbreweries have a wider audience to cater to, which means more competition joining in to capture the market but we don’t think that will make a lot of difference. We are confident of the brews we are offering. Only the best will survive. 

Also Read: This Restaurant Is The Only Microbrewery At 32nd Milestone In Gurugram

Marketing and Promotion Strategies by Drifters Tap Station to Counter the Competition

We are the first microbrewery in India to serve 24 handcrafted Eastern Europeans brews. We use all handcrafted malts and hops imported from the Czech Republic. Our brewmaster, Honza Kocka, is a Czech local and is a well-known Brewer globally who curates recipes that help us stay ahead in the competition. Even the processes used to create the beer are centuries old which have been passed down by the Czech through generations. There is lesser use of machinery and tasks, like picking barley husks manually amongst others. These are few things that go a long way in changing around the taste of the beers for the better. 

The Growth Potential of Drifters Tap Station in the Indian Marketplace

When we were in the planning phase of our business we, along with our brewmaster, travelled across the country and visited all the major cities like Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai, Gurugram to understand the palate of Indian consumers and the kind of unparalleled quality we were required to bring in. Honza then selected malt and hops from the Czech Republic as per our research and designed recipes in a way that Indian consumers would appreciate it. We wanted to have the potential to expand within all of Maharashtra and, eventually, across India which is why we have an extensive variety of brews that we serve. 

Pricing the Products

Given the location, we kept the price points such that it offers value for money. Corporates come in through the day for lunch or meetings and post-work hours to unwind while the lunch and weekend crowd comes in to enjoy the brews and the experience. The brews are available in 2-litre and 5-litre jars as well and are reasonably priced. The extravagant food menu that pairs perfectly with each brew is priced well and there’s a variety of Indian, Thai, European cuisines and more.

Expansion Plans of Drifters Tap Station

We are planning to open few more retail outlets in Mumbai and Pune and another microbrewery in Goa, so we can bottle our product and distribute it all across India. Drifters Tap Station is just a couple of months old but with the feedback for the brews we have received we have a lot planned. It is too nascent to speak about expansions currently. 

Garima Arora's Gaa cooked up a storm, recently, when the restaurant was awarded the Michelin star within two years of its opening. This made the 32-year-old the first Indian woman to get a Michelin! She has also been named in the Entrepreneur India's 35 Under 35 list.

"I kept doing what I believed in, what was right for my restaurant and my team," says Garima Arora.

Garima Arora started her career as a pharma journalist. She left for Le Cordon Bleu Paris, in 2008, to pursue her passion, cooking. Garima has worked with several renowned chefs including Gordon Ramsay and Gaggan Anand. She had also done an internship at Noma in Copenhagen, where she worked with Chef René Redzepi for three months. "I've always known I would want to have my restaurant one day. After some research into the profession, I decided to do it right then, as cooking is very demanding, physically and mentally," says Garima.

The food she serves at Gaa, in Bangkok, is phenomenal. So far, her restaurant has received no external funding, and she doesn't intend to go that way in the future, too. The restaurant has five partners where Garima owns a 20% stake of the company. Speaking about the unique concept of her restaurant, she says, "We're striving to create something unique from age-old and modern techniques. What the guests experience at Gaa is food that doesn't exist outside of my restaurant." Going ahead on the road of profitability, Garima Arora confirms that her restaurant business broke even in January 2019.

Gaa has cooked for around 24,000 guests since its launch on April 1, 2017, including the Indian celebrity guests - Suneil Shetty, Kabir Bedi, Kishore Bajaj, Ashutosh Garg and the Zaveri family.

Also Read: Michelin-Star Chef Vineet Bhatia Says Restaurants Should Focus On Technicality And Flavours

Being in the restaurant business has its own highs and lows. Speaking about her entrepreneurial journey, Garima Arora says, "The low is the long hours and missing all-time with family and friends, but running your own business is one of the most rewarding feelings. You work alongside your team day in and day out and you grow together."

In an exclusive interview with Restaurant India, Michelin-Star Chef Garima Arora speaks about her entrepreneurial journey with Gaa. 

One take away from your early career which you want the young chefs to know

Keep your head down and work hard. There is never ever a shortcut for hard work. 

Your experiences while working with Gordon Ramsay and at Noma

Gordon Ramsay's kitchen taught me humility; my experience at Verre humbled me. Noma changed me not only as a cook but also as a person. There I learned that cooking can be a cerebral exercise, it is way beyond just physical work. 

The idea behind serving modern eclectic cuisine at Gaa.

We strive to create a modern tasting menu which is completely unique to our restaurant. The ultimate goal is for our guests to leave Gaa feeling the joy of having tasted something new for the very first time. 

Your strategy on menu planning at Gaa

There are two approaches to our process: produce and technique. Either we start with an interesting ingredient or a very fascinating technique. Somewhere down the line, the two meet. 

May we expect your restaurant in India any time soon?  

Right now Gaa and Bangkok is my main focus. 

As a chef, what is your approach towards zero wastage food policy? 

The kitchen is generally run to make sure that you have the least food wastage. This is to keep your food cost low and this factor alone naturally leans towards sustainability. It makes sense to not waste food, especially from a business standpoint. 

Gaa has four investors. Please share key strategies on how a restaurant start-up should approach investors?

- It's better that you have a previous working relationship with them.

- Have to be transparent about your end goal.

- Have a clear business plan.

- Have a timeline in mind where the return of investment is concerned.

- Believe in what you do.

Vikrant Batra, a stalwart in the Indian food and beverage industry, is the mind and force behind the ingenious concepts of his stand-alone ventures, Cafe Delhi Heights and Nueva.

He launched Café Delhi Heights in 2011; the restaurant celebrates the saddi Dilli spirit, truly. Another venture by Vikrant is Nueva - a casual-dining restaurant with a luxurious stand-alone bar.

Being awarded numerous times by various food and beverage forums, Vikrant Batra aims to expand his restaurants globally. With the success of his restaurants, he has proven to be a man with great ambition and entrepreneurial skills. 

Restaurateur Vikrant Batra, in a tete-a-tete with Restaurant India, speaks about the key challenges while starting a restaurant, and more. 

Taking up the Family Business Reigns to Launching His Own Restaurants – The Journey

My parents started the Batra banquet in 1989. I started to work part-time while I was still in college. Seeing so much food around at the banquet, the foodie in me inculcated. I used to spend most of my time in the kitchen, with the chefs. I started taking the interest, then, on how the food was served and tried a lot of new cuisines. In 1993, while pursuing my Masters in Hotel Management, I started contributing more to the family business. It's quite easy to do the business when you are pursuing such a degree; it helps both ways. Later, I started taking full care of the banquet business. I started the outdoor catering all over India at weddings, receptions, birthdays and cocktails. That was quite an exposure for me. 

Also Read: What Makes Aerocity A Location Ingredient?

I believe if you have done catering, you've done everything within the food industry. You learn a lot starting from taking care of logistics to taking food from one location to another and handling a lot of employees.

The business was booming but I wanted to do something more organized because catering requires a lot of legwork and a lot of one-to-one interaction with the customers all the time.

“Success is a process and not a destination!”

~ Vikrant Batra

I took a break for a while, and in 2011, I opened my first restaurant Café Delhi Heights at Cross Point Mall in Gurugram. My brother looks after finances and projects, and I take care of the food and operations.

Introducing Contemporary Cuisines at the Restaurant/s

Café Delhi Heights is a product of change, creativity, marketing, and, definitely, the content! I've been travelling a lot in the last couple of years. Whatever excited me or impressed me, I would take it back, and get it on my restaurant’s menu. I observed a continuous change and a lot of concepts evolving. By now, a lot of concepts have come to Delhi; the market is dominated by European and pan-Asian concepts.

During my travel to South America, I saw close relativity between the Peruvian and Indian cuisines. I wanted to make something which is contemporary. We talk about modern or new things at restaurants. 

New has its own definition; ‘new’ is acceptable till the time it has an element of familiarity. 

I found familiarity in Peruvian cuisines. I instantly knew I wanted to bring modernism in the food. Therefore, I launched Nueva, meaning new in Spanish. The restaurant, basically, is about the influences – the modern and the Peruvian. This is what I wanted to get to the table for people. 

Serving Peruvian Food in Indian Market

We don't plan businesses with what we think will work. It is about what customers will like. 

With people being very-well travelled now, they are getting experimental. Earlier, eating out was occasion-based activity. Now it's a need. People used to eat out only on birthdays. Now every day is an occasion. When I opened Café Delhi Heights it was a struggle for 24 months. It took time for people to adopt the concept. People accepted the concept of Nueva, too, and the response has been phenomenal.

Key Challenges While Starting the Restaurants 

When Café Delhi Heights was launched the casual-dining restaurant format was not in the picture. 

Initially, creating awareness was and still a challenge. The word-of-mouth works best in the industry. 

When we started the restaurant, it was just the time when the ice-breaking social media was picking up. People were getting on social media, making food groups there was the continuous interaction about the new things happening in the town. That really helped. 

With Nueva, it’s different. Now the industry is evolving in days and hours. The acceptability, the knowledge and the means of awareness are accessible in everybody's hand, practically. 

The Biggest Customer Engagement Mistakes 

No one as an entrepreneur wants to make a mistake. And the biggest risk in life is not taking it. 

So it is just about the best communication with your customers. The quality of food and the experience you give. If that is not your strength and you're not focusing on it then you already made a mistake of being in the restaurant industry. 

Restaurant Operations in India as Compared to That of Foreign Countries 

With the availability of the blessing of the population in the country, the restaurant industry as a whole has been able to give a lot of job opportunity and, thus, the revenue generation. And as far as service standards are concerned it's majorly about your own internal upgradations and the training you have been through. 

Must Read: 5 Growth Strategies For Restaurant Startups

It's very difficult to compare an ‘A’ country's culture to a ‘B’ country's culture. Definitely, if you compare with a particular country where people are time bound by the clock, the standards are different and in restaurants in Western countries, the label is way expensive. For example, the customers, there, are supposed to pour water themselves while here in India, the consumers need to be pampered a bit, the waiting staff has to pour the water, place the napkins, and even refill the glasses all the time. I can't, really, compare the two concepts; it depends only on the culture. 

Approach Towards Supply Chain Management 

The success of any business depends on the supply chain. It is a much bigger concept than it may seem. It involves the process from procurement to availability, quality audit and reaching to the restaurant. The customers directly or indirectly become part of the supply chain as the end product reaches. It's the most critical thing to have a great supply chain. 

To give you an example, we'd made a central storage system. We have a base kitchen where we centrally procure everything, and dispatch in our vehicles, to maintain the quality. Secondly, the supply chain is very much under our control and the vendor gets the comfort of supplying everything in one place. See that's a very critical cost consciousness. 

Advise for Restaurant Startups 

- No discouragement but the restaurant industry, right now, has the biggest failure rate which everybody knows.

- To start a venture, you have to be a pre-startup, do things on your own and gain experience as much as you could.

- Your operating plans have to be very clear and focused.

- You have to be passionate about your restaurant startup.

- Don't make mistakes of overspending from day one.

- Be clear about what you want to do.

- And please don't lose focus on the main content of the food industry which itself says – food, food and food.

A fast-casual restaurant startup could require mid-to-high six figures as the initial investment, whereas the fine-dining or a casual-dining restaurant in India needs a huge amount for efficient functioning. India is the second largest startup ecosystem in the world and is expected to witness a growth of 10-12% per year. A question on how to increase the profit margins always remains on top of the mind of the restaurateurs. If you are putting up the restaurant business, you definitely want to see more and more customers walk-in through the doors, besides, maintaining a loyal clientele.

Below are the tried-and-tested ways for the growth of the profit margins of your restaurant startup.

From renting your venue out for private events to offering a seasonal menu, there are multiple research-backed strategies you can use to run a successful restaurant. Here are five growth strategies that your restaurant startup must follow to boost the growth curve. 

Good Social Media Presence 

Representational picture | Photo Credits Pixabay.com

Social media presence has, in recent times, become an essential part for a restaurant existence in the market. What we really keep in mind is that our Facebook and Instagram presence is so strong that it actually attracts the audience to come and stay at the place. For example, in our most recent campaign, we collaborated with a bunch of social media fashion influencers and came up with a concept "food meets fashion". We did a couple of videos photo shoots that actually revolved around our food meeting these fashion divas. This involved a lot of cross promotions, etc. Also, a very active social media presence helps the viewers to become potential customers.

Must Read: Know Your Clientele: Varun Puri Suggests Restaurateurs

Strong Conceptualization

Representational picture | Photo Credits Pixabay.com

The restaurant industry in India works on a strong conceptualisation, which essentially means a concept that your restaurant business is made or built upon. All our outlets for Imly have an individual and important concept behind. For instance, our first-ever Imly (Rajendra Place) was built as a train-like looking ambience from inside and outside. Depicting the true nature of the concept which was getting food from several states of India under one roof, and mostly street food which uses a lot of sweet and sour flavours with tamarind - Imly and, hence, the name.

Good Food

Representational picture | Photo Credits Pixabay.com

Good food is the essence of a good restaurant. It’s actually the Hero. You can give your guests everything but he'd just end up coming back for how good your food was/is. The signature dishes in our outlets like - Palak Patta at Imly, Nalli Nihari, Lamb Chops at Too Indian, etc have been loved by our patrons and we've actually included them in our new restaurant chain's menu. 

Welcoming Service Staff Presence

Representational picture | Photo Credits Pixabay.com

First impressions are very important and most of you would agree to the fact that apart from how the restaurant looks the first impression also comes from how your team greets the guests. Like escorting the guests to their respective tables for starters and then greeting them with a smile and being polite. All these things count in making a good effort for your guests to make them come back. There should always be something for the guests to look/come up to.

Click To Read: The Best Way To Advertise Your Restaurant

Good Offline Marketing Strategies

Online marketing is really the new-age marketing technique being followed by anyone and everyone. But the good old offline marketing strategies never go out of style. Few things we've been implementing regularly - hosting a lot of events at regular intervals, advertising in media and a strong PR is really an integral part of your visibility. 

Varun Puri is the Founder of Duty Free Bar in Gurugram.

We talk about delivery, service and creating experience but we often forget about the people who deliver the experience the last mile.  Staff is an important part of any businesses that we do. Hence, we should always focus on staff and people empowerment. When we talk about empowerment we talk about multi layers of empowerment and how it can create an impact among our employees and staff.

Lead and Grow: The most important part of running a restaurant is the ability to empower its sheer leadership so that they can take on the business and grow. Empowerment is a word which has two aspects- you can empower people when they are willing to empower themselves and you are willing to let go. I think this is the most critical part of running businesses in today’s world where the opportunity is so large. Opportunity only comes for owners when you empower your people and let it go. And, that’s the only way you can multiply. Every store manager of a Domino’s, KFC or any other brand has to be a CEO of thNusrae store to make it a wow business.

Empowering the middle level People: You are talking of taste, presentation and plating in a restaurant business but how can somebody talk about these if he or she has never ever tasted the food. It is important at the middle level to get actually involved by knowing that can it become their product, business. Action has to get transferred from top management to the last. Last mile is very important part of the restaurant/retail business as they are the true brand ambassador to the brand. Hence, empower them, give them everything that give them pride of working in the whole business of service. For example, when IKEA planned to launched in India, IKEA, UNDP and we at TRRAIN, together trained over 150 women who are today on the front end. The regular store today train employees for one week and put them on the job. We trained them for 45-65 days and put them on the job. And, today we can surely say that they are among one of the best and at least paid 50 per cent above than the rest of the frontend employees in the restaurants.

Thus, we can say that until and unless we care for the employees and we care for the customer and we empower them it is very rare to survive in the business.

As told by B S Nagesh, Founder, TRRAIN

To become a successful start-up, one has to look at many things like building a good team, to make something innovative and interesting, which customers want to see and the budget. On the same note, Kalpit Gandhi, CFO, Melt In said, “Our approach is three tiered. A continuous look out for new ideas; archiving ideas and filtering the ones, which are good and are in line with what our brand stands for; ensuring a process that sustainable product execution is possible with minimum possible variation”.

Today, funding is not an issue for start-ups. Moreover, starting a home based business is within the reach of everyone and low risk than a proper restaurant. According to founders, it's more important to serve a customer, than to build a product. And, that is the reason most entrepreneurs are building their product, than to solve problems for customers.

Mindset for a start-up

These days’ start-ups have completely different approach for their business. Start-up usually tries to pitch, which interests them or helps to make more profit out of it. After that they take new projects and build a smart team accordingly, which includes hiring those people who have a fresh approach and can handle challenges.

“Our learning from our past successes and failures have been the key to our approach. In depth market research, trend analysis, detailed projections (P & L), process documentation, marketing plan and brand communication strategy have kept us occupied, for over nine months. Over a period of time we built a team of SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) – social media, legal, financial, media, food & beverages, website development, portal development, PR, etc, pointed Abhijeet Goswami, Co-Founder, Cook'dIn.

Start-up restaurants generally focus on food. A restaurant with a grand food can be expensive, crowded, out of the reach for some people and even bad service, but still people will keep coming. That is why many restaurants even with average food attract customers through music, band performance, gimmicks and many such things.

“A mindset always starts with a goal; once you have the aim with you; it's easier to put the plan together. The method is simple-have a goal, plan it on paper and work towards achieving it”, shared Bunty Arora, MD, Doppio Bar & Brasserie.

Tech Approach

The new innovation of “food with tech” is all because of advancement of technology, social media and also online ordering. This is changing the overall mindset, product offerings, food supply and communication process.

“I'm very tech savvy. I love computers and its power. Life today is much simpler with apps, cloud drives etc. You can access your files, images and documents from where ever you are. It also helps to create team tasks, which can be monitored remotely. I feel technology if used correctly can create wonders for your organization. A simple app like Google calendar can help your entire team to schedule events and create team tasks. A startup I feel is something like a newborn baby, if nurtured correctly, it can turn into a full fledged business”, stated Arora.

Hence, there are many such strategies to start a start-up that would vary considerably from person to person.