Nexa

Street vendor makes boat load of money serving street food. Instead of trying to serve random gourmet meals on random days, decides to open a gourmet restaurant. Starts with a decent menu and adds some good dishes in due course. But two weeks into new business, owner's street vendor instincts kick in, and starts to serve same Indian street food with western names in his new swanky gourmet restaurant.

Ek dum jhakaas 😀

Very well imagined. I especially love the details which capture the perceived core values of each brand, while also describing the journey of a few of the brands over the years. Super job 👌🏻

Plus the street food has many outlets. Also when we have any complaints regarding the food, waiters will reach our table at the earliest. But the real problem is regarding those paper plates. Handle with care else

Some industry trends.

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This adamant vendor even refuses to send the food for inspection.

Hi Venky,
That's some nice perspective and excellent writing.

This was the best of the lot for me. Its so crisp and well related.

At the start of the thread, the news on Ford and Mahindra merger flashed in my mind. So was waiting to see, how you would have expressed this scenario.
Behold, the comparison was so apt and humorous, it made me smile from ear to ear.

Thanks again for sharing. It surely made my day.

Brilliant thread! As a fellow foodie and restaurant owner I thoroughly enjoyed reading every post. Initially I thought of Maruti as a typical Bangalore darshini, but then your post made me realise that this is a disservice to Darshinis. The latter are clean, pocket friendly places, which do not fit well with the unsafe nature of Maruti cars. Yes, Tatas with their new safety focus are probably the darshinis and Sarvana Bhavans of the automobile world and Marutis the street food eateries.

Absolute brilliant Venky and all the others who have contributed here. Loved the MG with MSG undertone.
The industry trends cartoon takes the cake though. Made my day

Will just add,

Fiat also have a centralised kitchen that most customers don't know about and supply other kitchens from there, who then simply sell it as their own

Honda - a brilliant phoren chain everyone was excited about. They first launched a Biryani joint in the heart of Hyderabad, priced it better than the nearby joints and earned good customer numbers.

Then they decided to put up a stall selling non vegetarian outside a Jain temple, a hotel outside a church in Goa during Lent focussed on pork (which otherwise is a goan delicacy), a burger joint near a slimming clinic and when nobody bought their food, sacked their employees and blamed the stupid customers.

Lovely thread, both innovative and entertaining at the same time

Here are my 2 cents with a disclaimer that the intent of this post is purely to contribute to the humor of this thread and I mean no disrespect to any particular brand (being an owner of one of these myself!)

Jeep
A restaurant chain, primarily operating hot-dog carts in the US, decided to enter the burgeoning Indian market, knowing very well that we Indians are crazy foodies. They started a few restaurants in India with only 2-3 dishes on the menu which were so exorbitantly priced that they ended up being just that - dishes on the menu! But what this did to their brand in India was amazing - people queued up outside the restaurant just to take a peek at the menu and smell the scintillating dishes kept in the bain marie, wishing that they served dishes which could actually be ordered and eaten. And that day finally came - they introduced a dish which could finally be ordered/eaten and as expected, people went gaga over it. Folks ordered that dish for lunch but ended up having it for dinner, such was the wait time. Most of the customers, however, did not come back as the food, although very tasty, was quite highly priced and they realized that they could get much better "garnished" dishes at lower prices at nearby Korean and English restaurants, notwithstanding the fact that quality of ingredients used was quite good, albeit not good enough to justify the price. This, however, did not deter the American chain - in fact, they increased their prices further, much to everyone's amusement. So, as things stand today, they still get a modest stream of customers but it is a matter of time before these customers get bored of the single dish on their menu and start looking elsewhere. All the best to them!

Mitsubishi
Ah, the quintessential Japanese restaurant with top-notch dishes on the menu, with taste so divine that one would give hand and limb to taste them again. But wait, these dishes were prepared in Japan and imported to India! Let's say you want a dash of salt in your dish - well, you will have to leave your plate in the restaurant for a few weeks and come back when the salt has arrived from Japan. And guess what, that pinch of salt is almost as expensive as the dish itself! But we Indians are known to work around such issues, aren't we? So, guess what the customers started doing - they bought the dishes from the restaurant - for the taste was unmatched by far - and took it to the FNR (friendly neighborhood restaurant) for that dash of salt. This, of course, did not go down well with the Japanese chain and they drastically reduced the no. of dishes on the menu. They somehow continue to sustain, given the minuscule bunch of loyal enthusiasts but it is only a matter of time before they become history. God help them!

And after the last restaurant shuts down we go looking for the chef. Then we also look for his family and settle for any damn meal even if it means having something cooked by the chefs grandmother 20 years ago. Some of us also start a loyalty scheme for that defunct restaurant and make it our life's mission to educate the masses about this supposdely exquisite culinary art.

Fiat for me is a Hotel which serves very limited choice of good food at the counter, without any seats and with lazy staffs. They stay in business and makes profit only from the Zomato orders (Read multijet) and are getting forced to close down due to new hygiene regulations (BS-6)

This was one of the perfect examples and I was like .
Additionally, sometimes they are unable to provide newly launched food menu to foodbloggers for review.

Adding to Nexa...

Maruti's AC hall.

If HM was alive, would it be "Maa ka haath ka khana, savoured by everyone ... from politicians to taxi drivers"