HAPPY HOUR

Free-standing restaurants are on a roll

F PRIYANK SUKHIJA, the promoter of First Fiddle Restaurants, was not a restaurateur, he would probably be working with Google Maps or Apple Maps. He knows prime properties on India’s high streets and in malls like the back of his hand. When everybody was neglecting New Delhi’s Connaught Place (CP), he opened a series of restaurants there. The reason – location.

“Every city has a centre. New York has Times Square, London has Oxford Street. The city centre of Delhi is CP. It is huge. If anybody from South and West Delhi enters CP, he enters via Baba Kharak Singh Marg, and the first thing he sees is Lord of the Drinks [a brand owned by Sukhija]. Enter from Janpath, and the first thing they see is Teddy Boy [Sukhija’s another brand]. Enter from KG Marg, and the first thing they see is Townhouse Café. Five years from now, even if these restaurants stop doing well, the location will never be obsolete. I can always convert them into something new,” he says, adding that it’s nearly impossible to find better locations in the area. He has 12 restaurants in CP under six brands.

Sukhija is among a host of new-age entrepreneurs who are transforming the Indian restaurant scene. According to a FICCI-Technopak report, the domestic food services market – organised and unorganised – is estimated to grow 10 per cent annually over the next five years to touch `5.52 lakh crore. The organised segment, which includes both standalone outlets and chains, accounted for 34 per cent market last year. Chain restaurants are classified into fine dining; casual dining; pubs, bars, clubs & lounges (PBCL); quick-service restaurants (QSRs); cafes; and frozen desserts – based on pricing, service, experience and offerings. Each segment is gaining traction, but casual dining (like Mainland China, Farzi Café, Social, Mamagoto) and QSR (McDonald’s, Domino’s, and KFC) seem to be leading the pack with 34 per cent and 45 per cent market share, respectively.

Although QSRs are more scalable, casual dining chains earn much higher revenue per outlet, reducing to an extent the effort and risk as compared with QSRs. “All-day dining, or casual dining, is the most promising bet right now. People are experimenting with newer things. Instead of eating at Domino’s or McD’s, they are going to casual dining places,” says Vivek Kaul, Head (Retail Services, India), CBRE South Asia, a real estate consultancy.