Named “Pub Capital of India”, Bangalore seems to be a perfect city to launch a restaurant/cafe. The city has more than 12 million population – a huge audience to market to – and a moderate climate throughout the year that will appeal to tourists as well.
However, the restaurant industry comes with lots of challenges, from internal optimization problems to external factors such as a pandemic.
Acknowledging the potential of Bangalore as a restaurant city and the diversity of cuisine, we interviewed some of the restaurant owners in Bangalore to understand what’s the secret of their success and what they would recommend to other restaurants.
Whether you are going to launch a cloud kitchen in Bangalore or simply need to improve your profitability, these quotes will be of huge benefit for you.
Our first author draws attention to multiple factors, from focusing on a single product to taking care of the ingredient quality.
#1 Jayanth Narayanan, Owner at Manis Dum Biryani, Bangalore, India
“We believe our survival (given how tough the industry is I prefer using survival rather than success) is due to the following:
1) Offering a product that has a natural market demand – Biryani (a mixed rice dish)
2) Focus on consistency – customers know exactly what they will get from us. Because of our single product focus (Biryani), we are able to deliver this more often than not.
3) Taking care of our staff – in turn they take care of our customers.
4) No compromises on ingredients, cooking process and quality – the motto we follow is “Buy raw materials, cook and offer products that you would gladly serve your own families”.
5) Lots of luck and good wishes from our customers, suppliers, landlords, employees and stakeholders.
Advice for other restaurateurs to increase profitability: Please tell us if you figure out easy ways to do this. The key is to figure out a way to do profitable sales – so the balance between sales volumes and pricing is critical. Try and get this right.”
Our next author also would agree that running a profitable business means optimizing a set of restaurant operations and your success doesn’t depend on a quick hack.
#2 Prajwal Lokesh, MD at Chin Lung Resto-bar, Bangalore, India
“For Chin Lung Resto-bar to be successful it boils down to
- consistency,
- incentivising the chef’s time taken to serve to table & sheer interest taken in understanding our target market,
- focus being given to preparing our own sauces and pastes from scratch and ensuring only the freshest protein and veggies are served at best value.
As for profitability it’s very important to engineer your menu to ensure there’s minimum wastage, finding the right vendors and diligent food costing and to focus on selling only what you’re best at rather than jumping on ever changing trends.”
Our third guest talks about some more factors, including avoiding discounts and eliminating wastage.
#3 Nikhil Gupta, Co-Founder, The Pizza Bakery & Paris Panini, Bangalore, India
“There is no secret to profitability. It just requires a constant focus on keeping expenses in check and offering excellent quality food that is consistent across your locations.
Food cost is generally the single largest expense for restaurants. It’s important to keep a tab on this and eliminate wastage through regular reviews of non-moving items.
Menu engineering should be done quarterly as well. Quality and consistency of food can be ensured with strong SOPs for measures, heating times, techniques, etc along with periodic training and checks.
It is best to avoid any kind of discounts or offers. This will only give you a very short term boost in revenue but hurt your brand and its long term profitability prospects.”
Our fourth guest emphasizes the importance of quality, safety, and trust as well as setting the most optimal prices.
#4 Sharad Agarwal, Founder at The Nosh House
“The Nosh House is a gourmet cloud kitchen in Bangalore offering global cuisine. It has seen tremendous success, and acceptance by the customers, as reflected in its ratings too.
The secret is our insane obsession with quality, which our customers somehow take for granted now! Even all during the pandemic, with severe cost pressures, we did not give up on it, not even by a fraction. And when hundreds of eateries unfortunately had to pull their shutters down, we stayed afloat, just because we had customers, who believed that it’s perfectly safe to eat with us!
For profitability, I will recommend to focus on menu and pricing, and balance out a range which is a fair mix of low cost and high cost items. Also analyse the quantum of discounts that you want to run, deep discounts will never earn you loyal customers, but for sure, hurt your bottom-line in the long run.”
Final thoughts
Finding success as a cloud kitchen in Bangalore is in your hands. And we will keep publishing similar quotes to help you learn from established restaurants and entrepreneurs.
Subscribing to a restaurant management system can be your first step to effectively tracking and analyzing your operations, from sales to inventory and menu engineering.
Start exploring EagleOwl features to see how we can help with reducing wastage, generating reports quickly, and increasing your profits.