Happy Hour
If 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 Cafe. 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
