Vikram is the co-founder and CEO of Tulleeho, a drinks training and consulting firm and Bar X, a bar...Show more »
Full disclosure. Almost a decade ago, Yangdup Lama and I went knocking on the door of investors to fund our dream of setting up a bar. To our surprise, however, we found that investors were not interested in funding a single bar, but wanted to know the roll-out plan for the next 10 to 15 bars. We tried our best to persuade them that running a bar is a labour of love, and it would take time to ensure that the first one was perfect, before we could even think of opening more, which might easily take 12-18 months to do. But a friend's words were proved right: it's easier to get someone to invest Rs 10 crore rather than 1 crore.
Opening your bar is probably on everyone's top 10 "I wish I .." lists, along with learning to play the guitar and joining the mile-high club. But it's tougher than most businesses in India as it brings together two notoriously difficult sectors, when it comes to regulations, liquor and hospitality. On their own, each is difficult enough and when you bring them together, it makes for quite a challenge.
It's been fascinating to observe the changes in the way India drinks out over the last 15 years. From bar chains like the Thank God It's Friday (TGIF) and The Beer Cafe to brewpubs on every corner in cities like Gurgaon and Bangalore, it's been a dazzling array of pubs!
For some owners it's a valuation game and very much a business, whereas for others it may be a fashion statement. And for a very few, its passion. Unlike in the restaurant industry, where numerous Chefs have found backing to open their own restaurants - whether it be Abhijit Saha in Bangalore with Caperberry, or Saby in Delhi with Lavaash, or Kelvin Cheung in Mumbai with One Street Over - it's much harder to find a bartender at the helm. It's comparatively easier says Yangdup for investors to come in behind a restaurant, as a food-driven venture is seen as a less-risky business when compared to a bar, especially with the name of a Celebrity Chef behind it.
Yangdup Lama just chalked up the 3rd anniversary of Cocktails and Dreams Speakeasy in Gurgaon.
As our newly-minted Laureate puts it however, "the times they are a-changin", opening a bar is no longer the purview of a rich kid with money to burn. Instead, it is a conglomerate of bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts pooling in their best.
Turn the clock to 2016 for Yangdup, and he's just chalked up the 3rd anniversary of Cocktails and Dreams Speakeasy in Gurgaon, the award-winning bar he set up in partnership with Minakshi Singh. One of India's top young bartenders, Lama earned his spurs at the Hyatt's Polo Lounge in Delhi, and the entrepreneurial urge bit him in the year 2000, thus marking the start of a long and successful run as one of India's leading bartenders to the stars, with his services much in demand to Delhi's old (and new!) money.
Twelve years of running a successful business enabled Yangdup to set up Speakeasy on largely his own steam, and do it "his way", without having to worry about an investor's expectation and tastes. That also gave him the luxury of a full year in not having to worry about the bottomline, but instead focus on creating a destination in a hitherto-untapped part of Gurgaon, where customers would come to savour great cocktails in a warm environment.
Down south in Bangalore, Shreyas Patel, was a drinks and biking enthusiast who decided to turn his passion for drinks and cocktails into a small bar called Bootlegger, located a hop step away from UB City. The success enjoyed by his first outlet, has prompted Shreyas into opening a much-larger avatar of Bootlegger in Bangalore's Indira Nagar, proving another instance of an entrepreneur successfully turning his passion into a business, while not being dissuaded from the challenges faced.
Sandeep "Sandy" Verma's career has run in parallel to Lama's, with both working at the Hyatt in Delhi around the same time, and both quitting to set up their own lucrative bartending services agencies and bartender training institutes. For Sandy also, bartending was (and is) a passion, and the thrill of creating something new, which gets an immediate feedback from his guest, was not to be forsaken, no matter how many parties he oversaw. The dream of running his own bar was always there, but unfortunately his first venture ran aground, and it wasn't until he was at Lama's bar for a book launch, that he was inspired for his second coming, which 2 years ago, broke ground in Gurgaon as the eponymous Sandy's. With his balance-sheet just turning from red to green, Sandy says he's never been happier.
Both Lama and Sandy would love to see more bartenders, or at least, those with a passion for the bar, turn bar owner, and indeed it remains a dream for many young bartenders I speak to. For Lama and Sandy however, setting up a bar, came on the foundation of their own thriving businesses, which gave them the confidence, the client base and the capital to get their dream venture off the ground. Perhaps however, the next gen may have it easier, after the trail blazed by their seniors.
