| Some like IT, some opt to follow other passions. They have chucked up high paying, globetrotting, time-consuming jobs of fixing hardware problems, writing software codes to pursue their hidden fervour for being in the kitchen full time. In the bargain, they have also become successful first generation restaurateurs. India Today maps the trend with Mast Kalandar owners Pallavi Gupta and Gaurav Jain, Kiran Nadkarni of Kaatizone, Khanindra Barman (Kay) and Pankaj Bhatia of the Beach, and Shiok Far Eastern's Madhu Menon. That most Bangaloreans, especially the three lakh techies working hard to help the city retain its Silicon Valley status, eat out with their families at least thrice a week only helps business. PALLAVI GUPTA AND GAURAV JAIN Owners of Mast Kalandar What do you associate with the name Mast Kalandar? If your answer is the 1991 Hindi film starring Hema Malini, then you just don't dig IT. For those driving past the 80-ft road in Koramangala, Mast Kalandar is one of the most sought after quick-service casual dining north Indian restaurant. It is not huge or swank in the sense of the term but it is crowded on most days. And it is not even run by experienced restaurateurs. Pallavi Gupta, 30, and her husband Gaurav Jain, 33, continue to be the best of friends ever since they clicked as soul mates many years ago at an engineering college in Ghaziabad. Like most engineers, they ended up in tech companies— the duo actually worked as senior information technology honchos and did long stints in Australia.
"We had made it, money was not an issue," says Pallavi, the gregarious of the two. "But I remember telling Gaurav years ago when we used to hang around the college cafeteria that one day, we would have our own restaurant." It helped that the two were in the field of retail solutions. "We looked around, spoke to friends, did our own gap analysis and found there was a big space where we could operate," says Gaurav. "There was the fast food place but generally considered frivolous and not very healthy, and then you had the wholesome healthy food space, light on stomach and light on pocket." The latter gap was yet to be filled. If pizzas and burgers were sold by the millions, there was space to sell healthy parathas too.
Sure of their findings which happened on casual India visits, especially to Bangalore where they were operating from outside their college life, they quit their jobs. "We decided to enter the segment and present our fare to health- and calorie-conscious individuals. To give Indian meals, so that they go back to their basic palate," adds Gaurav. The couple's close friends also pitched in with their presence and support. Investing all the money the two had into their first outlet on Bannerghatta Road, the duo sat back to see if their experiment worked. "We recovered what we had invested in a year but we ploughed it back."
Pallavi says that one of her strengths is she can see six months in advance, while Gaurav is the details man. They are already working on opening one more outlet in three months.
And how did they get the name Mast Kalandar? Gaurav says there is a place like that in the Sindh region of Pakistan. In the Sufi belief Kalandar was a manner of worship, being carefree and a picture of gay abandon. "Our guests have to have a sense of Mast Kalandar, have no baggage, just swirl in that happiness and enjoy the food here." KIRAN NADKARNI Owner of Kaatizone He is one of those early venture fund guys who spent much of his time in the bay area in San Francisco where most of his ilk hung around in the hey days of the dotcom era. "One of the things that I always did there was to shop around for international food," says the IIT chemical engineer who closely worked with the venture fund division of ICICI before chucking it up to become a venture fund guy himself.
"May be the food entrepreneur was always in me waiting to explode,"
says Kiran who now owns the three-year-old Kaatizone chain of outlets that spin out hundreds of rolls every day through its seven outlets in Bangalore. The most recent outlet opened in the Kalyannagar area in early April.
Impressed by the Starbucks business models, Kiran realised there was no similar visible national brand of Indian foods. "When you see Mc- Donalds you identify it with a particular kind of food, or Pizza Hut for that matter. I wanted to step in and promote a similar Indian brand even if in a small way," he says. And so, Kaatizone seeks to have its product portfolio that is almost 100 per cent Indian. Kiran was clear that his Kaatzone outlets will be present in the high streets and that is why he opened his first outlet three years ago on the Church Street, off the city's most famous thoroughfare Mahatma Gandhi Road. Apart from the footfalls, his business is also helped by big corporate orders. What next? He wants to structure his company much like a software major offering stock options for faithful senior management. He is also raising capital to grow the business to be a national player and at some point go international. PANKAJ BHATIA AND KHANINDRA BURMAN
Owners of The Beach For former techies Khanindra Barman and Pankaj Bhatia, The Beach is not just a success story, but one that has caught on remarkably among the city's well-heeled. The Beach, with its soft sand and open skies, has tried to create the effect of a real beach in the middle of the city.
Both the software engineers in their 20s started The Village, their first restaurant, over three years ago.
"Our efforts have been to create theme-based restaurants, and we ideated extensively before deciding on the way we wanted The Beach to look. It's got to be a rustic simple place, we encourage people in shorts and chappals to walk in." And the result is some shacks like in Goa, lanterns, water bodies, fishing nets and waiters looking like they've stepped right out of a cruise liner from the Caribbean. "The idea is to be novel and flexible and make everyone feel at home," says Khanindra.
The duo
are proud of the fact that they do everything in the restaurant, they help with taking orders, ushering the guests in and cleaning the tables.
"It's our baby and it's only right that we dirty our hands looking after it," he says. The design is flexible with changes being made every now and then to keep the place fresh. There are interesting nooks and corners for families, couples and the surging crowds during the weekends. As for Software? Well, they seem to have discovered that nothing compares to food, not even blue chip companies! MADHU MENON
Owner of Shiok Far Eastern
Madhu Menon calls himself a madman. At least on the Web. Madhu, 31, also left a well-paying, well-touring job in the IT sector to pursue his passion of becoming a chef. "I think it is in my destiny because this is what I always wanted to do," says Madhu, a portly techie who calls himself a "web-head"
and counts weightlifting and voice impersonation as his hobbies.
Most of the specials at his Indiranagar restaurant Shiok Far Eastern are created by him for a very discerning clientele.
The seeds to become a food entrepreneur were sown almost 15 years ago.
Madhu was thumbing through a UK superstore catalogue that his father had brought back from his regular jaunts there and his eyes fell on a Ken Hom 14 carbon, steel Chinese wok in the kitchen appliances section. It came with spatula, chopsticks and cookery book. His loving dad, of course, lugged it back for Madhu from London. Over the next few weeks, the teenager studied Hom's book in detail digesting the Chinese philosophy of cooking.
But like most boys from his background, he went to engineering college, got into the world of geeks, travelled abroad. He says he got sucked into Asian food on his stopovers at Malaysia and Singapore en route to Australia on business. "Asian food is popular in Australia and I think Singapore is the food capital of Asia so those trips gave me an opportunity to expand my knowledge base," says Madhu, who put all his money into opening Shiok, roughly meaning "damn good" in Malaysian slang, a year ago. It offers a selection from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, China and Indonesia.
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