When you meet Hitesh Keswani, Founder of Silver Beach Café and Hospitality, you can imagine him pottering around in a laboratory – mixing things in beakers and test tubes and coming up with new concepts to revolutionise dining. Because that is exactly how he approaches the F&B business.
He has cracked the code for building customer loyalties by creating F&B destinations that are a class apart. This includes the food, drinks, décor, pricing, service and most importantly, the theme of the eatery. And the trick to achieving this elusive status quo is by having several distinctive brands so he can rework his plans seamlessly from one to another.
When we meet the 35-year old entrepreneur at Silver Beach Café Bandra, he is seated contentedly and unobtrusively in a cosy corner of the buzzing restaurant. However, his attention is constantly on what diners ask and how the staff meets their requirements.
This close observation of things in his periphery is how he gets his big business idea for his restaurants, Radio Bar, Estella, Silver Beach Cafe, Copa, Sirocco, The Terrace, Jantar Mantar, Nom Nom or the newly-opened OPA Kipos. A quintessential Bandra boy, he relentlessly keeps an eye out to see what is missing in Mumbai’s dynamic F&B landscape and how he can best bridge that gap.
“Some get into the F&B business to make money, others to get their name attached to a successful restaurant. I am in this space because I am truly passionate about it,” he claimed, adding that is why he takes a keen interest in every aspect of the business.
ENTREPRENEUR WITH AN EYE FOR DETAIL
Hitesh reasons that one can get a good interior designer to jazz up the décor and a culinary whiz to curate a lip-smacking menu. However, ultimately, the holistic experience will draw in guests and keep them coming back.
“Just like fashion, trends in the food business also keep evolving. Successful brands are those that can keep up with these trends, especially the global ones. After all, today’s customers travel widely and expect similar experiences they had enjoyed during their overseas visits,” Hitesh adds.
Spotting trends and building a unique property around them distinguish a successful entrepreneur from his peers. Hitesh has a knack for it and has created culinary destinations that bear witness to shifting food habits and customer preferences.
For instance, after opening Silver Beach Café in Juhu, he soon realised that many diners were curious about trying European cuisine but kept gravitating to pan-Asian dishes that they were familiar with, like Thai Curry Rice. Today, he claimed that the restaurant sells more Thai Curry Rice a month than any other Asian restaurant in the city; its European antecedents notwithstanding. “One needs to be flexible and reengineer the menu based on what your customers demand and not what you want them to savour,” he says with candour.
O FOR OPA
When he recently brought the OPA Kipos franchise in India – an upscale restaurant chain in Dubai, Bahrain and New York currently – he studied the cuisine and other Greek restaurants in the city extensively. He quickly surmised that few of them had a vegetarian fare to offer.
“When I signed them up, I made them understand the dynamics of the Indian market, where almost 50% of diners are vegetarians or even vegan. OPA Kipos never had vegetarian dishes on their global menu,” he stated. Lengthy discussions with the corporate chef ensued, which resulted in a specially curated menu for India, with an equal ratio of vegetation options.
Hitesh recalled how many of his friends and family members dissuaded him from introducing a Greek restaurant, worried it would find limited acceptance amongst Mumbaikars. The same set of people called him foolhardy when he decided that OPA Kipos would only be open for dinner instead of having a lunch service as well.
However, Hitesh was clear about what he wanted from the brand – it was not a place where people came to eat and drink, but one where they were also entertained. Meals are served with a flourish, guests are encouraged to break plates after their dinner, and the entire team performs a quick dance every night.
“These elements can be replicated during lunch, as most of our clientele would comprise professionals from nearby corporate houses,” he reasoned. Today, Hitesh has proved his naysayers wrong – the 200-seater speciality establishment is always booked through the week and overflowing over weekends.
STANDING OUT
This attention to minutiae is not an inherent trait in Hitesh but one he has honed. He learned it when he started his career as a manager at Mocha and later Hawaiian Shack, which was amongst the must-visit party spots in Mumbai. The skills he picked up here gave him the confidence to open Silver Beach Cafe Juhu in 2010. Moreover, he managed to make it the go-to destination for European cuisine in town.
“When I outlined my plans to the landlord, he was so excited that he decided to rent out the space to a youngster like me. Our agreement was entirely verbal, without any lease documentation,” Hitesh laughs. And to date, his alliance with the landlord works on mutual trust rather than copious paperwork.
Fortified with the success of his first venture, he opened Nom Nom in Versova and Bandra West, which focused on pan-Asian cuisine, before introducing Copa in 2013. This Juhu-based resto-bar soon became the place to see and be seen. Hitesh later introduced Sirocco, The Terrace and Radio Bar in addition to Estella. He also expanded to Goa with The Lazy Goose and Toro Toro.
Interestingly, most of his restaurants are based in Mumbai, especially in the suburbs. Quiz him about this, and Hitesh clarifies that he is not enthusiastic, for now, about having more dots on the map and expanding rapidly.
“Most of the current outlets are very close to each other because that is my comfort zone,” he openly admits. “It also helps that the company is self-funded, so there is no pressure to deliver results by opening outlets all over the place.”
Of course, he would like his brands like Silver Beach Café or Nom Nom to have a presence in key cities, and he has been mulling over taking the franchise route for this. And he is clear about what attributes he does not want from his franchise partner.
“It can’t be a privileged person just taking up the business to have something attached to their name – I want someone who lives and breathes the brand. It can be someone with some experience in F&B, but with a fire in their belly,” he claimed.
And more than that, Hitesh will go with his trusty gut feeling before the business handshake. After all, that gut instinct has kept his business going, nay roaring, for long. And he would instead take his chances collaborating with someone who ticks all the intangible boxes rather than the tangible ones alone.
