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The minute they learnt the business, they wouldn’t pay royalty!”
In Chandigarh, for example, Hot Breads started selling dosas!
you cannot grow rapidly, if you ‘go it alone’.
Thus it was that in 1993, Mahadevan started Copper Chimney in Chennai, as a joint venture with Sunil Kapoor of ‘Blue Foods’.
Mahadevan sold 50% of his stake in Hot Breads to Shamit Bhartia (son of Shobhana Bhartia, owner of the Hindustan Times group).
A new company called B & M (Bhartia and Mahadevan) was formed.
However, while Dominos has gone from strength to strength, Hot Breads has actually contracted. What went wrong?
Well, small things and big things.
“Numbers are very important for me. I operate in 16 countries and my email every
month only talks about what are the sales, what is the cost.”
In a JV situation Hot Breads became ‘nobody’s baby’.
tip of the foodie iceberg
Wang’s Kitchen
Thai eatery Benjarong in Calcutta and Bangalore.
of Ente Keralam. Later Andhra and Chettinad
K...
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Planet Yumm
“Planet Yumm is about 1400 sq ft,
Highest per square feet turnover in the entire country!”
“You make higher profit in fine dining. But if you look at the volume of business, it will come from food courts and coffee shops.”
Scalability is high, the money is easy and yet, Mahadevan will not put all his eggs in any one basket.
Noodle House
a very trendy restaurant with low seating and ‘one bowl meals’, like in Hong Kong.
French Loaf which opene...
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Most people concentrate on one or two and let them grow. Mahadevan has a different view. He sees his company as a ‘string of pearls’.
Azim Premji.
“We have only three verticals,”
“One is Food Courts. We have nine of them, two more are opening shortly.
then there are verticals like a bakery
Take Oriental’s most high-profile venture Zara - a name that truly ushered in the idea of ‘nightlife’ in Chennai. It was born, not out of choice, but compulsion.
“The government built a bridge in front of my Copper Chimney and China Town
Business went down by abo...
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Mahadevan bought it, built a hotel with 20 rooms and 40 beds, and opened Zara in 2002.
The Mahadevan philosophy is, keep trying. Something new, something never done before.
It’s also about keeping your eyes and ears open, and learning from wherever you can.
‘sourdough bread’,
But he knows there is a formula, and if you tweak it and adjust it - things usually work.
“Number one - location. Number two - product mix. Number three - general acceptability.” After all, it’s all a matter of taste.
ambivalence.
In 2008, Oriental Cuisine had a turnover of T 20 crore.
The new CEO at Oriental Cuisine is Vishwadeep Kuila - a 1989 batch MBA from IIM Ahmedabad.
While Mahadevan is hands-off in almost all respects, the one area he is personally involved is costing.
Through email and SMS, he keeps track of ‘food sales’ on a daily basis.
“My key concern is that food cost must be within 35-36%.
“As we grow, we have brought people on high salaries. From 11 % to 14%, the salary bill has suddenly gone up to 22%!
When you are doing on a large scale, it is like painting on a bigger canvas, you tend to spill something somewhere.”
“Whenever I meet pleasant people, I always want to enroll them!”
“10% of the proceeds at our fine dining restaurants goes to the boys who are running it. 10% out of sales, not profits, mind you!”
Winner Bakery
barista training centre.
