New Delhi, Oct 3 : The slowdown has left many sectors like auto and real estate struggling but there are a few segments which are not only immune from it but booming.
Food and beverage (F (and) B) segment especially high-end restaurants have bucked the trend and continue to register higher footfall.
Buoyed by the demand, many of the entrepreneurs running upscale restaurants are planning to add more outlets.
Industry veterans attributed the growth trend to people finding dine-out as an escape from stressed life, authentic food experience and quality family time.
Avantika Sinha Bahl who runs KAMPAI, a Japanese restaurant in Aero City, has identified a new location to open another outlet sensing bigger market.
While she has seen sales growing 5-10 per cent month-on-month, her family-owned Embassy restaurant in Connaught Place remains a key hang-out zone in the capital.
"I personally started this restaurant (KAMPAI) almost a year ago and I have already signed for a second restaurant which will open in January.
This will be in a new Mall in South Delhi," Bahl said.
Her family-run Embassy restaurant, Bahl said, is one of the oldest restaurants in Delhi and reached its peak many decades back.
The restaurant remains full all time during the day.
People trying new cuisines have added to the growth of the upscale restaurants which serve authentic Chinese, Thai and Japanese foods.
After Chinese and Thai, the elites are fast developing taste for Japanese and Vietnamese foods.
Manish Sharma, Director, Yuvi Hospitality said that as a result of slowdown people cut down on their discretionary spend but he has so far not seen much impact barring sluggish growth in last three months which have to do more with the lean rainy season.
Sharma runs a range of restaurants and bars by brand name Molecule, The Drunken Botanist, Viet:Nom and Distillery.
"We have Molecule in Chandigarh and Lucknow we have not seen any dip in sales there.
All of our restaurants are doing really well. It is certainly tough to run restaurants here (Gurgaon) because there is massive competition. In fact in a month or every fortnight there is a new restaurant. At times there is a little dip in business but there could be multiple reasons for that," Sharma said.
Yuvi Hospitality runs four restaurants and bars -- Molecule, The Drunken Botanist, Viet:Nom and Distillery in Gurgaon.
(Nirbhay Kumar can be contacted at nirbhay.k@ians.in)
--IANS
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Source: IANS
