CK’s Foodstaurant (a little Indian, a little western) - Part 2

Hello guys, this is continuation with my previous post.

Cognizanze: Hello sir, happy to see you, and on behalf of SOM, PU we wish you all the very best for your new move.

Vishy: Thanks a lot. And am happy to see you people here.

Cogi (Cognizanze): Is this new venture a planned one? Do you think restaurant business as a new line of business?

Vishy: Restaurant business is a planned business for us. After proven success in our food business (brands like Ruchi and Chinney’s in pickle & vermicelli) we thought of moving out in a bigger manner and as a result, this restaurant. We are happy to launch it in a grand manner, and soon we would start 300 new stores across the nation. We think, we would do it better and bigger here.

Cogi: “No marketing, no advertising “don’t you feel, you lag something in your marketing strategy and that too operating in this segment? (I came to know about this restaurant, after reading it from indiainfoline.com and couldn’t find any news about this restaurant even in CavinKare’s website)

Vishy: You are absolutely right. But we launched this restaurant as a testing platform. You could see only 2 hording (each on the south and north entrance for the city) and a 3x3 cm advertisement in each daily (only in Pondicherry circulation) on the inauguration day alone. We wish to do more of “WoM” (Word of Mouth) for a simple reason that “Taste could be carried away not by net presence, but by ‘Mouth presence’. Once we reach the tripping point, we would definitely carry this brand forward.

Cogi: Pondicherry is a small town, with more floating population. What made you to start your restaurant here?

Vishy: You are right. This is good testing market for our restaurant business. We are clear in our ideas,” a little Indian, and a little western”. And we are happy with the response. In a week we could get approximately 200 customers per day.

Cogi: Thanks for giving me the opportunity to visit your kitchen. It is very small; I wonder how you are managing both vegetarian and non vegetarian, more importantly not mixing items?

Vishy: Thanks a lot for visiting our canteen. This is shows our confidence in serving customer better. We have placed a hording outside our restaurant which says that, “Visit our kitchen first”. With constrain in space, we follow a unique model here to prepare the food items. We have setup a central kitchen located just 3 km away from restaurant. Ingredients quantity for all the items in the menu are prepared & packed well and then distributed to the restaurant (including the amount of salt needed for specific item). This becomes easy for the chef in the restaurant. He will follow the SOP, and this makes the entire process simple. Out of all the processes this is easier and effective, for a simple reason, we assure our customer a standard quality, and uniform taste irrespective of chef (either he may be armature or experienced, all he need to do is just to follow SOP). This technique also helps us to keep low inventory in our restaurant, and making us to operate in a clean environment. I think this is innovative move from CK.

Cogi: Marry brown, KFC, Subway ... where do you want to position yourself? Who is your target customer?

Vishy: We don’t challenge any one (as of now!!!). All we want is to provide customer with quality food. And this is one such restaurant where you will get both hot idlies and crispy fried chicken.

Cogi: That sounds great sir. Thanks a lot for spending your valuable time with us. And we wish all the best for your new business.

Dear readers, hope you would have definitely enjoyed this interview. Yet I have some questions unanswered with me (i have mailed them, and awaiting for his reply) like, will idly and fried chicken can go hand in hand? (Fried chicken can be munched for nearly 20 mins but idlies can’t take much time) the target customers are not clear, and promoting Pepsi and Maa (a brand from CK) for burger and fried chicken is bit confusing. Though the concept little Indian and little western concept is new, it is not been explained well (the ambiance is so common like any other restaurant). With all these bases, CK’s Foodstaurant has to do more home work. If all goes well, am sure all the customers will ‘eat like nawab and sleep like governors’ (in their home)!!!!

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