New Age Restaurants are redefining the food industry by updating the operating processes, increasing labor efficiency, and adapting to changes in consumer behavior. Focusing on the 4’Cs of hygiene which are cleaning, cooking, cross-contamination and chilling, these restaurateurs are changing the new age business game.
What’s New?
“The growing appetite of people to try international cuisines are increasing day-by-day. We are catering to the trend by serving seasonal menus. Next year summer, we are planning to get mangoes and litchis from our Orchids in Uttarkhand and inculcate in to the dishes by promoting organic healthy foods,” shared Ritika Sharma, Director, Litchi Bistro-Delhi who believed that people are looking for personalized, healthy, and a global food options.
Emphasizing his points on innovations, Manoj Rai, CEO, Punjabi by Nature added, “We have added healthy options in the menus. We have wheat-based breads, gluten-free products, millet salads. But we need to look in to brand as well as we serve Punjabi food and are known for that. We have cheesecake with low sugar; Shahi-Tukda with less sugar so yes, the desserts we serve has less sugar.”
Though, people want to indulge today but meanwhile, they look for healthier alternative for it and that’s where these new age restaurant owners are playing the game.
Highlighting his points on the same, Tejasvi Suresh Bala, CEO, Swirl Lifestyle said, “We serve comfort food across the globe. We serve mainly in Chennai. We started around 7 years back. There is a growing demand for comfort food, and we do get family and Gen-Z crowds. The rise of experiential dining is amazing. We are planning to use technology which will help us more with live cooking."
He also pointed that sustainability, and ethical consumption is not a trend, it’s a norm. And we all should follow and abide by the same.
How Social Media is Influencing People What to Eat?
“It’s all about social media these days. Some days, I go to restaurants just to make reels and curate something that is instagram friendly and aesthetic. We do have a strong base of traditional signature dishes while we do take cues from the social media,” explained Ritika.
Putting out his views, Manoj said, “We are active on social media. We have to be very sure about the content we post, and the team has to make sure that the content reaches the right people. We have modified our standard of services. People get the feel of the dish by the presentation, they click the picture and if they like it, they post it. We have done changes in the way we present our cocktails, so it’s eye catchy for the consumers. It’s been going well with our customers. We are getting more views on our instagram reels these days.”
Retaining the Identity of Brand
“The ideology of the food needs to go with the trend. We try to make our entire menu go viral on social media platform with influencers and though leaders. The activity led menu also works with high aesthetics. There is fire in pop-up menu happening in Mayfair right now, we are doing since last one month, and this is popular in social media. We are extending this till Diwali. Social media helped a lot. User generated content makes a lot of difference. We came up with Kids menu with a coloring book. Micro-influencers are a community itself. Workshops and pop-up really help. Creating an experiential product is an important thing. Consistency also plays a major role. For us, Google ads work wonders as it targets the right customers. Not to chase the trend, but to create user generated content.”
Integrating Technology
“My café is instagrammable. Litchi is more about food. We are focusing on freshness and taste and quality,” said Ritika. Highlighting on delivery services, she added, “The brand tone is about freshness and quality we provide. We haven’t indulged into delivery services. We are focusing on food menu which complements the beverages.”
While, Manoj noted, “Customer should receive the delivery without the spillage. The packaging has to be good enough. We have 40% customers from online food platform and 60% from offline platform.”
“Inventory management is a key thing which we navigate. And the major boom is QR code. Customise add-ons on each menu. Training our staff is difficult so QR code made our services easier,” explained Tejaswi who added that Kitchen automation is booming in the market.
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