Page 52 - Forbes India (December 2015)

EntErprisE spEciality rEstaurants

catering degree from the Institute
of Hotel Management, Kolkata, and
in 1982 he joined the Taj Group as
a management trainee in Mumbai.
After working there for 18 months, he
quit his job to do a marketing course
in Mumbai and, in 1985, started his
own advertising agency Situations
Advertising and Marketing Services.
The agency continues to operate
with Chatterjee as its managing
director and boasts of clients such as
Emami, Yardley, Tata Steel, Birla A1
(cement), among others. He doesn’t
manage day-to-day operations, but
still participates in client pitches.
A mainland China Six years after setting up his
restaurant advertising agency, in 1991, Chatterjee
in mumbai and his wife Suchhanda (now a whole
time director and director-interior
since 2013 without any formal is a fashion designer in Pune. Besides and design at Speciality Restaurants)
designation—as the head of running her own boutique Mairah, started Only Fish in Mumbai’s Mahim
innovation and new formats. “We she also runs a small patisserie Pink area. He was the manager and she
were a Generation X company and Button, but is not involved in the the chef at the 40x40 sq ft restaurant.
now we are on our way to becoming operations of Speciality Restaurants. In 1995, the brand was rechristened
a Generation Y company,” says Avik fondly recollects that it was Oh! Calcutta, with a new restaurant
Chatterjee, who credits Avik with his mother who would tell him that at Tardeo and the rest, as they say,
disrupting his business model. one day he would have to take over is history. As of March 2015 Oh!
“I was always pushing for bars, the leadership mantle. “She would say Calcutta has nine outlets across India.
but my dad was resistant at first. He that my father has done so much and Speciality Restaurants, however,
used to tell me: ‘I’m a restaurateur worked so hard and one day I would is not Avik’s first entry into the
and I’m going to make restaurants.’ have to take it forward. But, my dad restaurant business. In March 2012,
I told him that the world is changing never really sat me down to tell me with a funding of Rs 25 lakh from his
and people are also changing,” says that this is what you need to do. His father, Avik started an online midnight
Avik, who likes experimenting with advice was: You choose what you food delivery company Madbites.
global cuisines and has developed a want to do, it’s your life,” recalls Avik. “From 12 am to 6 am we would
flair for Japanese food. And thus the The foodie DNA runs in the deliver food. The menu included
bar brand Hoppipola, catering to a Chatterjee family, right from Avik’s hot dogs, sandwiches, burgers,
young audience, was born in 2013 in grandparents. “My father was one salads, and a few Indian items,” says
the country’s pub capital of Bengaluru. of the most hospitable people. He Avik, who ran the business from
The name Hoppipola, though, couldn’t cook very well, but he could a centralised kitchen in Powai.
was Anjan’s choice and it means sit with you and tell you what to To begin with, the startup dished
‘jumping into puddles’ in Icelandic. have with what. My mother dished out 50 orders per day, but by 2014
Avik’s initiation into the food out the best Bengali mutton curry, it folded up. “It was a midnight
business happened as a toddler when, which I miss even today,” says business, but we were paying rentals
he says, “my mom would carry me on Chatterjee, who spent close to 18 for the entire day… We couldn’t
her back on a baby carrier, while she years in Delhi, where his father was recover costs,” he explains.
would cook”. “She always reminds a research scientist at the Indian His focus now is to identify and
me of how we started and where we Council of Agricultural Research. grow scalable restaurant formats
are now and that I should always be In the late ’70s, his father that would insulate the company
grateful for what we have,” says Avik, was transferred to Odisha from from external headwinds. And the
born and brought up in Mumbai. where Chatterjee completed an diversification from fine-dining
His sister (Harshita Chatterjee undergraduate degree in physiology. outlets to casual all-day ones is
Deshpande), who is five years older, From there, he went to earn his the key driver of this change.

52 | FORBES INDIA DECEMBER 11, 2015