The Wisdom Wall

“Malls are good for incidental footfall, but cost prohibitive and your margins in a standalone restaurant with lower incidental footfall, your margins are going to be better than in a mall.”

“The restaurant industry has a cycle shorter than any other industry. Every six months, food tastes change, design tastes change, entire, you know, the entire vibe around a certain, you know, area changes, entire markets change. So I think, uh, the cycles are smaller in our industry than perhaps even in the fashion…”

“I think hotels especially have a fairly regimented salary structure. So if you're coming in at a certain position, I don't think you're going to get significantly more just because you came out of a wonderful school like hers. Probably going to get paid the same, but I think your career path, you know, the expediency…”

“it's such a high failure rate business that, um, to go to a bank and expect them to give you, you have a better chance at Jumping off an aircraft and surviving, then being a first time restauranteur and going to a bank and asking for money to open a new restaurant.”

“I think, like I said, I think initially it's always better to be a little careful and frugal. Um, don't go ahead and try and open a 5000 square foot, 200 cedar restaurant. Maybe start out Today with a cloud kitchen or a small cafe.”

“in general, I think people go to restaurants for the overall experience. Celebrity can probably pull you in for the launch, can probably pull you in for hosting the right tables, getting initially the buzz going. That buzz will last as much as the first or second visit. After that, the quality of the product has to…”

“you get to launch only once. And if you don't make a big enough buzz, you probably will have, uh, a slower, more tepid, more, a slower, more tepid, uh, kind of a, you know, uh, pickup. So I think that's not necessarily good, especially with the high stakes games that the restaurants are.”

“One way that I would recommend to people that if they're in a certain geography is that you could go the route of being exclusive. If you offer that, there is a potential of asking for lower percentages because you're in a way alleviating the, um, ability of that restaurant to be sold, that brand to be sold on another…”

“We've seen, for example, a tougher challenge selling pizzas than burgers. Whereas the demand for pizzas is far more than burgers in India. It's like literally like our dinner and our snack and our lunch. Pizza has reached that. There are fewer burger places. And as a result, if you can make a difference, make a better…”

“When you have Ganpati in Bombay, you're going to see a reduction in dining out. You're going to see a reduction in non-witch consumption. You're going to see a reduction in alcohol consumption. People are going to not go out as much. When you have Navratra in North India, you have a major reduction in the number of…”