August 25, 2022
By Anirbaan Hritiq
“Turn your obstacles into opportunities and your problems into possibilities.”
Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
If you are determined to achieve something, nothing seems impossible. The word impossible doesn’t exist in the dictionary of doers now let us don’t link the same with a dialogue exchange between Sharukh Khan and Deepika Padukone starrer Rohit Shetty’s Blockbuster movie Chennai Express, 2015 where SRK says, “Impossible is a word which doesn’t exist in my dictionary” and countering the same reply Deepika replies with anger and a hint of sarcasm “From where did you purchase such rubbish dictionary” (of course the dialogues were in Hindi). Jokes apart, the protagonist of our story has indeed defied all milestones of impossibilities to achieve his goal to set up one of the first Cloud Kitchens in Odisha at Bhubaneswar named The City Grills operational since 2017. Before moving deeper into the story of Anshumaan which was full of drama, emotional traumas, out-of-box efforts, and game-changing twists and turns let’s understand what exactly the term Cloud Kitchen means in layman’s terms.
Cloud Storage sounds sensible but what’s Cloud Kitchen?!
Cloud Kitchen is also known as Invisible, Ghost, Shadow, Virtual, or Dark Kitchen which simply functions as a restaurant without any physical existence where you can go out on weekends with family and friends and dine in. It fundamentally functions online where customers can order their desired food via browsing through websites, applications, or telephonic correspondence, and the food will be delivered to their place via delivery agents. It is essentially an e-commerce platform for food items in miniature form delivering freshly cooked food at doorsteps. Not, going further into technical details of the cloud kitchens, let us focus on what made an electrical engineer like Anshumaan go for such an outlandish idea to set up, a one-of-its-kind cloud kitchen that only serves fitness-oriented food items with a western touch.
The Beginning: How it was initiated?
The City Grills was started by Anshumaan Acharya in the year 2018, though the foundation of the organization was led in early 2017 but had to be stopped due to some unforeseen circumstances.
Upon, being asked Anshumaan says, “Life was full of challenges and struggles when I relaunched the venture after a tremendous loss and emotional break down caused due to unexpected shutting down of my first initiative.”
He recalled that his first source of capital was from amount he earned by selling his DSLR camera and its accessories. It was a big deal for a photography enthusiast like Anshumaan who had to sell his first camera for ₹1.2 lakh. Since then there was no looking back on his journey.
The Journey: How did he conceptualize the idea?
Anshumaan who had just passed out his engineering and was on probation period with a tech firm didn’t have any idea what he should do next. On being asked, the young entrepreneur adds “I wasn’t satisfied with the environment offered by the firm and conscience was not permitting me to continue as well.
So, I decided to leave and start something of my own”. Anshumaan, who is himself a fitness enthusiast and badminton player, thought to start something unique.
After doing a bit of researching and analysis himself, browsing through multiple health enthusiast websites he thought to launch a cloud kitchen that would only serve continental diet food, which customers can order normally as we order from restaurants or through subscription models.
He recalled an incident and said, “I was just planning to set up this business, and shared with a gym trainer friend of mine as thought that I am going to launch a full-fledged cloud kitchen of mine which would serve continental diet food which can be consumed by fitness enthusiasts or those people who want to be fit but couldn’t manage to cook themselves due to hectic work schedule.
Anshumaan further adds I couldn’t myself believe that I will be getting such a response, the trainer friend of mine was so delighted he instantly opted for a monthly subscription and shared it among his clients. My kitchen did a business of more than ₹1.5 lakhs in the very first month.”
The idea behind the concept was to introduce and serve high-quality continental diet food to consumers with fitness goals. Despite of rapid growth of Bhubaneswar as a smart city, no restaurateur was focusing on the idea of providing door-to-doors of diet-based continental food. Anshumaan was one of the first entrepreneurs who tried to fit into this slot and the rest journey is on.
Challenges: What were the penalties for choosing ‘the road on taken’?
Talking about the challenges, Anshumaan said my first challenge of finding a good Continental Chef was solved when I met Guru Charan Pradhan, who has supported me since the initial days of my start-up, his ability to prepare sophisticated continental dishes and parallelly maintaining the consistency in the standard of food since day one is what kept us going.
After finding a good Chef the second challenge was the procurement of raw materials and for us, it was exotic vegetables. There are only a few vendors of exotic vegetables in entire Odisha and I had to hustle through multiple mediums at some point in time even thought of traveling to Bangalore once a week to purchase the required vegetables but thankfully I was able to connect with a good vendor who solved my issues.
Again, due to the instability of prices sometimes we do make losses, for example, the current flood situation in Odisha has also skyrocketed the prices of exotic vegetables despite not being inter-related with each other as most exotic vegetables come via air route.
Last but not the least, as a man connected to the hospitality industry, I believe in building a good customer relationship which is only possible through hiring well-behaved delivery staff and developing a positive post-service experience.
Acceptance: Peer Pressure, Patience, and Customer Experience
Since it was an out-of-the-box attempt criticism and peer pressure were an integral part of the journey. Anshumaan says, “I come from a family where almost everyone is a government employee including my father and grandfather, so I was also expected to follow the same path. Therefore, I was initially criticized by the family and still also sometimes they say to switch my profession, and perhaps it will continue for lifelong”.
Coming to the patience part being an entrepreneur is a tough job. One has to be extremely patient to taste the fruit of success and the same is in the case of Anshumaan as he has been a subject to humiliation in many places, sharing a few incidents he said “I have been humiliated more by acquaintances rather than outsiders, which made understand how tough the job of a delivery boy is.
I have been a jack of all trades in my business and even love delivering food to my customers on multiple occasions and have enjoyed a mixed experience of how people, treat those people who are no good for them, anyways it’s part of the game. I have been disowned by my friends on multiple occasions whenever they accidentally witness me in the avatar of a delivery boy.”
The customer is God and should be treated with the ought most respect. Upon being asked, Anshumaan said, I remember not hiring delivery boys with a hint of aggression in their behaviour because they are carrying a brand identity and goodwill with them.
I am very particular while dealing with customers, no matter whatever happens respecting every customer should be the primary responsibility of a service provider. The City Grills still hosts multiple customers who are attached with us since 2017 says the entrepreneur with pride.
The Conclusion: What are your plans? Advice he would like to give to young entrepreneurs
The entrepreneur plans to take his initiative from virtual to physical existence. He says, “I would love to set up a continental restaurant and serve a larger number of clients in the coming 5 years. He says, he wants to promote healthy eating habits among the young generation.” Anshumaan who is currently 30 years old and a rising entrepreneur in the hospitality industry upon being asked, what advice he would give to budding entrepreneurs said, I would like to break down my advice into three small bits. They are as follows:
- Bad Reviews and Criticism are part of the game and should be accepted if they are constructive and are identifying any lacunas in your leadership.
- Market Study is Must, one should do a complete survey of the market trends and requirements before launching any initiative.
- Patience & Control over superiority complex, the entrepreneur must have the patience to deal with unforeseen black swans and should learn to treat all hierarchy of employees equally.
The out-of-box venture of Anshumaan gifted the capital city of Odisha, Bhubaneswar with one of its first cloud kitchens along with an alternative to fitness enthusiasts who were struggling hard with their diet routine.
In the meantime, the initiative which started with selling his camera also brought him desired fortune to acquire a new one as well. During the pandemic period, when businesses were running in losses, City Grills was engaged in the noble cause of providing meals to the affected families.
At the end of the interview, Anshumaan adds, “It is extremely important to listen to your inner-self and chase your passion to be successful. For me, success is peace and happiness which I get through positive reviews from my consumers.”
