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Palash used savings to ensure everybody in Euphoria got paid
PALASH SEN,
ESinger ver wondered where the pizza you recently ordered came from? The answer is — from a cloud kitchen. With India’s online food delivery market touted to be a $21.41 billion industry by 2026, these delivery-only setups are altering the food landscape.
“Initial investment, monthly expenses to run cloud kitchens is much less, compared to a restaurant. And, the pandemic created more of a market, with customers preferring to eat in the safety of their homes,” says Akshay Kaul, who recently opened a cloud kitchen, Kin Thai, in Gurugram.
A number of established brands are adapting a hybrid trend of cloud kitchens, while operating out of a few brick and mortar stores. “We have opened cloud kitchens in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, etc. to explore new markets. Also, it seems to be a good decision to increase delivery revenue,” says Kabir Suri, founder of Azure Hospitality and popular names such as Dhaba Estd. 1986 Delhi, Mamagoto, etc.
The pandemic brought the world to a standstill, and singer Palash Sen admits it’s been particularly tough for performing artistes, in the absence of live shows. In order to adapt, the singer and his band, Euphoria, started doing virtual gigs. However, he does not shy away from sharing that it has been extremely hard, financially. He, in fact, dipped into his own savings to ensure that all his band members get paid.
“These are things you’ve to do for each other as a family. Not only for them, I did a lot of charity in the last year and a half,” he says, asserting that when the going gets tough, people have to stand by each other. “You can choose to have a bigger house, a bigger car or a grand holiday. Or, you can choose to help people. That’s what I did,” he adds.
The band recently came out with their latest album, Sale, for which they went the NFT
Cloud kitchens have also proved beneficial for cafes hit by the pandemic. “We switched to a cloud kitchen and we are currently making double of what we made at our café, thanks to higher customer reach via food aggregators and lesser fixed costs,” says Srija Gupta, who now renders tiffin services in Mumbai. way. Fans could bid, and the highest bidder got to listen to the album before the release itself. Without live shows, Sen confesses it has been quite hard to sail smooth.
“We reinvented ourselves and started doing virtual concerts. We also brought out music continuously. This year, we worked on this album which has seven songs. It keeps your creative juices flowing. Yes, it’s tough for finances, that’s the biggest hit. We all have to keep faith, things will get better,” says the 55-year-old, asserting that things will be back to “not normal, but new normal”.
Even after all these years, Sen still gets nervous right before a concert or an album release, he confesses. “This album has come out after a lot of blood, sweat and tears. I have nervousness before getting on stage, album toh bahut badi baat hai. I get loose motions before any big thing happens. I had an upset stomach three days before Sale’s release!” Sen quips.