Mid-market restaurants missing in Kolkata

The other day I had been to Gariahat ... a hustling bustling market place in South Kolkata ...
At any time during the day, you will find atleast 5000-6000 people there. After I finished my work I thought of having a quick bite at some restaurant and then rush back to campus for the lecture.

And I was surprised to find tht there were no decent restaurants where you can order fast food, grab a bite and move on ... I decided to search as many eating joints as possible in that area. Most were unhygienic food shops and there were a few up market restaurants serving exotic cuisines. Then I decided to eat at a road side hawker and that revealed the true reason for the absence of such mid-market restaurants.

Even affluent higher middle class people here prefer to eat at these roadside hawkers. In a way the target segment is satisfied with their current pattern of consumption. I had 2 dosas and 1 idli and it cost me only Rs.15. I had bought a bottle of mineral water for Rs.12 to satiate my thirst. Alongside the dosa stall, there were two ladies which a huge turnout of taxi drivers. They were serving a large quantity of fish-rice. Quantity of rice was tooo much (comparable to the total quantity of rice I have in 6 meals) and to add to it a piece of cooked fish. Being a vegetarian I did not taste it. But still all this in Rs.10/- strictly speaks of the price sensitivity of the people of Kolkata. If we extrapolate, we can generalize this theory to West Bengal as a whole. This in a way explains, how conservative governments have survived in this region for decades, despite of very slow pace of growth, merely by keeping prices of basic necessities in control.

When I discussed this with a few friends of mine, they quickly pointed out that Rs.2 tea is available even in Mumbai. But there is a vast difference here. One that I already pointed out ... absence of mid market restaurant chains like Kamats, Shiv Sagars, etc. which are prevalent in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, etc. Other that turnover might not be comparable to that in Mumbai, where a road side chaiwala can easily sell upto 500 teas between 6am to 11am.

With recent developments and liberalization policies of the left, some enterpreneur might idenitify this opportunity and start a chain of Mid-market restaurants in Kolkata. This knowledge of mine is purely restricted to my observations. May be there would be some existing chain of restaurants already that I might be unaware. Feel free to critic this write-up.