Kaidi Kitchen serving on first come, first jailed basis
Kaidi Kitchen serving on first come, first jailed basis

Have you ever wondered eating your meal at a prison? Waiters taking your order all dressed up in police personnel attire? And people serving your meal dressed in a prisoners’ outfit? Kaidi Kitchen, a theme-based restaurant has become a topic of discussion among food lovers, serving a mix of cuisine at a ‘Kaidi’ themed fine-dine restaurant.

 

“Opulent prison cells, cheerful Kaidis and a seductive aroma that permanently hangs in the air; we're a bit of a twisted fantasy, you would think. We would like to confide in you our response to that thought. Yes, we are,” said the confident Rohit Ojha, one of the Co-founders at the restaurant.

How did the business start?

Kaidi kitchen was started in December 2012 by three friends Rohit Ojha, Ankit Madhogaria and Saurav Aggarwal out of the need that pure vegetarian fine dine restaurant was not easily available in the city  as they believed ‘Fine-Dining’ is an art.

 

After market research, the group thought of starting a multi-cuisine fine dine setup serving, Mexican, Italian, North Indian and Mongolian food at the restaurant.

The Kaidi chefs concoct a meal, with extreme attention to detail, to meet each customers' gastronomical whims and fancies featuring a motley of diverse cuisines.

According to the founders, it is an imprisonment of sorts, mainly indulgence. And the decor captures this sentiment quirkily, with the prison-inspired cells and the Kaidis serving as props. It isn't just dining anymore; it is an experience that is to be relished delightfully.

How did ‘Kaidi’ theme born?

When the group was looking for places, there were no theme in their mind, it is only this place which made them think to operate under ‘Kaidi’ theme.

“We did the trial before completely launching the outlet. We gave two choices to customers either sitting at jail and having food or observing from out the people who are preparing food inside the jail,” pointed Ojha.

 

The restaurant is made in such a way that if a person is sitting at their outlet he doesn’t get bored. The decor and designing part is done very smartly so that it doesn’t look unhygienic and dull because of the bricks they have used to give it a prison look, because food is all about having an all-over experience.

Entering the franchisee model

The restaurant which opened its first outlet in December 2012 entered into a franchisee model in March 2014 by opening its first outlet in Chennai and opened the second outlet in Kolkata in December 2014 being quick on response and expansion of its outlets.

“Our first outlet was located at Camac Street Kolkata and when people from North Kolkata used to visit our outlet, they complained to us for not operating the outlet near to them, so you can sense the response that we are getting from our customers,” said Ojha.

The group opened the second outlet in Mani Square Mall in North Kolkata so as to get the best footfall catching on the footfall of a mall as well. The restaurant also opened the party space at the second floor of its outlet as it was receiving good response from families who use to visit in large numbers of 30-40 headcounts. Getting an average footfall of over 200-250 at each of its outlet, Kaidi Kitchen is targeting high on its expansion.

“Our target is to increase the lunch footfalls, target office goers and add 100 more pegs in the next few months,” added Ojha.

A fully owned and funded Kaidi Kitchen by three of the partner-friends who invested approximately 1.5-2 crore to start the fine dine setup, is also looking for franchisees in tier-II cities to expand their business targeting at cities like Jaipur, Surat, Raipur amongst others.

“We were in talking terms with people in Jaipur and Surat, but we finalised it because we couldn’t find a suitable place because we are looking for place which is minimum 3,500-4,500 sq ft in space so that restaurant can be run very smoothly.

A mix crowd is the best result puller

The restaurant which has made a name among restaurant fraternity is getting good response in Chennai with 70 per cent of the crowd from Tamil locals.

“We were surprised to know that most of our customers are Tamil as we expected Jaini and Marwari crowds for our outlets,” laughed Ojha.

Targeting at around 2-3 franchisee outlet with tier-II cities expansion as the group believes developing cities do very well as compared to developed or metro cities.

 
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