Fiat will be launching a new Fiat Caffe in Bangalore sometime in May 2013.
What you'll like: - Authentic hot Italian coffee/espresso and hot Italian cars up the WOW quotient and WOO quotient.
- Breaking their tradition of the past 5 years of Tata-Fiat association, there are no Indicabs or Sumo taxis / drivers found anywhere near the facility.
- Mature, upmarket interior decor and ambience makes you get an instant flair of all things Italian.
- Lots of cozy places to relax and chill-out inside the lounge-caffe with a cup of coffee and good company.
- Playstation with racing games for enthusiasts to enjoy some virtual racing. Yes, those cars won't have 'niggles' to worry about.
- Fiat Merchandise is now readily available over the counter, even though most of their spare parts are not.
- Tons of options to impress your better half or family or whoever else dares to equate Fiats to Premier Padminis again.
What you won't:- The Caffe is indistinguishable from regular Fiat showrooms, at least from the outside.
- A cup of cappuccino takes more time to arrive here than a by-two cup of Filter Kaapi at other local restaurants
- Exorbitant pricing of coffee as well as merchandise. Fiat makes sure customers use their credit/debit cards compulsorily.
- Lacklustre menu card with very less variety on offer. Competitors like CCD and Barista offer lots of pastries and short-eats too.
- Although Fiat cars are displayed at the Caffe, they are not actively sold or serviced here. Aam aadmi customers will be confused about what to do after entering the place. A car showroom serving coffee and snacks?
- Parking space is a huge constraint in front of the Caffe. Most car owners will be forced to hire cabs or come by bikes.
- The caffe can get claustrophobic and noisy when the place gets crowded. That may not happen regularly though, considering it is Fiat Caffe and not Maruti Caffe / Hyundai Caffe.
- The large LCD screens inside don't play UEFA Soccer matches or Formula 1. They instead air Arnab Goswami's "Tonight at 9" on Times Now.
NOTE: Click any picture to open a larger higher-resolution version in a new window
Sorry to be late for April fool!
Hopefully the mods don't mind a light-hearted spoof of Team-BHP's official reviews' opening lines. I borrowed that style and adapted it to a Caffe preview review, just for fun
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Jokes apart, a few of us BHPians had been to the yet-to-be-launched Fiat Caffe yesterday on Intermediate Ring road, Domlur. The Caffe is located very close to Embassy Golf Links entrance on the same side. It is set to be launched in mid-May, but yesterday they had some pre-launch promo event going on, so we just decided to pay the place a visit and post some initial impressions here for the benefit of others.
It was a warm Saturday afternoon, and the caffe was moderately crowded with some curious onlookers and some serious fans. There was a local radio station staging some event and interviewing visitors (we were victims too, more on that later).
Scouting for car parking - the very first and most important issue here
After we found parking at an adjacent ramp, we walked towards the caffe entrance
Car parking is on first-come-first-serve basis on this ramp, as well as in front of the showroom. Total parking capacity = 10 cars max *frowns*. Really, what were they thinking??!!
Car parking in front of the Caffe entrance
Entering the Fiat Caffe
The place was abuzz with sales staff, visitors and radio Emcees conducting some events
A Punto also was on display with the Linea
A window neatly displaying Fiat merchandise on offer for enthusiasts (more on that later)
There was a Playstation area for those interested in killing time playing virtual racing games.
Some snaps of the merchandise on offer:
Fiat badges for the front grill, boot badge and alloy wheel caps. If any of you have these logos flicked from your car and couldn't get them at your local service centre due to "no stock", you know where to head to *lol*
Coffee mugs, key chains, pens, watches, scale models, etc
They even had nice Fiat themed T-shirts, caps, sweatshirts and jackets on offer.
Over to the Caffe area now :
Apart from this main hall, there was a small staircase and an elevator to the first floor
Since this place is still partly under construction, we chose the staircase instead
The stairs lead to the caffe seating area. The place is still being done up, so it was not in full launch-time spec at this time. The staff are planning to do up the entire interiors in red, white and glass theme.
The seating area is nice and airy, and is being spruced up to include nice Fiat-Alfa-Ferrari history information with posters on the walls. There will also be a LCD screen here very soon.
The passage from the entrance leads to the coffee-bar area
The counter at the coffee-bar is still being done up with the Italian tricolor theme. It will soon include Italian car trivia too.
From the caffe seating area, you can look down and spot the cars on display. Once the caffe is up and running, there will be an Alfa Romeo and a vintage Fiat 500 too, according to the showroom head honchos.
We were served some pastries and soft drinks by the hospitable staff, and after that we happened to meet the Fiat head for sales, all India (forgot his name). He spoke very nicely (and diplomatically!! when he knew were from team-bhp) but obviously had sealed lips and gave out no information about future launches of Abarth/Jeep/Fiat, instead telling us to
"wait and watch the plans falling into place from now on" . They are planning to aggressively attack the advertising space and building service network strength in the next few months.
He mentioned that the T-Jet will be manufactured in April/May and will be formally re-launched in and available from June. That should put to rest all speculations about launch postponed / cancelled, etc.
We had a funny interview with a local radio station RJ annoying us to no end with stupid questions. Some of the questions deserve to go on the "Quirky comments by non-petrolhead friends" thread, so I'll skip that part here.
Leaving the soon-to-be-launched Fiat-Caffe. The visitors were not all Fiat owners. There was a Cruze
And there was a beemer dropping in too!
I brought home this 'affordable' piece of memorabilia for now, since the caffe didn't have card facility up and running yet.
I'll try visiting the place next month and see how the fully done-up place looks.