As Bandra and Lower Parel get high on rentals and low on inventory, high-end restaurants flock to Dadar, attracted by its affordable rentals and under-catered demand
Last October saw restauranteur Riyaaz Amlani’s cafe and co-working space Social opening in Dadar. Becoming its neighbour a month ago were the folks behind the famed Malvani restaurant Chaitanya, who opened fine-dining restaurant Coast and Bloom serving coastal fare from across the world. And, coming up next is Shilpa Shetty Kundra’s Bastian with a 10,000 sq ft rooftop restaurant parked on the 48th floor of the same commercial and residential hub. With at least three high-end restaurants opening in Dadar and many others lined up, it poses the question: Is Dadar emerging as the next food and beverage (F&B) hotspot of Mumbai?
“Dadar is very upcoming,” said Nikita Harisinghani, co-founder of Chrome Asia Hospitality, the company behind the recently launched Gigi in Bandra among others, adding that they were also eyeing this neighbourhood to open their new restaurant. But they didn’t because they couldn’t find the right property. “Hospitality, sadly in Mumbai, has become all about real estate. You have to have a property which is significant in size, has good frontage, allows natural light to come in and still be affordable. We are still looking for one, and if we get it, we would cent per cent have a restaurant there,” she said, adding that those opening restaurants in Dadar now would have first mover advantage.
Weighing in, Anuj Puri, chairman and founder of Anarock Property Consultants, says that Dadar surely has the potential to become an F&B hub with enough catchment that is under-catered and has to travel to Lower Parel or Bandra for dining and recreation.
When it comes to the numbers, Puri says the rentals are indeed more affordable in Dadar in comparison to Colaba, Bandra or Lower Parel. Giving an estimate, he says that the per square feet rental on the carpet in Dadar is around Rs 300-350. However, that in Colaba is Rs 450-500, Bandra Rs 400-500, Lower Parel (outside Phoenix) Rs 375-425, Churchgate Rs 400-450 and Nariman Point Rs 350-400. This means the rent of a restaurant spread across 1,500 sq ft would cost anywhere between Rs 6 L-Rs 7.5 L in Bandra versus Rs 4.5 L-Rs 5.25 L in Dadar and that is a big difference.
Chirag Maru, a real estate expert who predominantly works with restauranteurs, points out that the underlying problem behind the rents going exorbitantly high is the fact that there is no entry barrier when it comes to being a restauranteur. “This is why it is seeing a lot of young, rich kids, wannabes, as well as people bringing in shady money in the business.”
Industry players, however, justify that it is not low rentals but uncatered demand in such areas that is the real reason for them moving there. Amlani, CEO of Impresario Entertainment & Hospitality Pvt Ltd, the parent company behind Social and Smoke House Deli, among others, said, “It is a part of the evolution and gentrification (a process where a portion of a city develops rapidly) that the whole of India is going through… There is a huge market which is under-served and location-wise, Dadar is very central,” he said.
Stating that going to a place is a habit-forming activity, Amlani shares how various pockets in Mumbai became famous with the entry of one big entity. “The Fire N’ Ice put Lower Parel on the map. Blue Frog did it with Todi Mills. Even if you look at the previous location of Bastian in Worli, it was right next to a chawl and inside a mill… People started going to that side of the town and stopped thinking of it as anything else. All it takes is one or two good brands to come and then it becomes a habit,” he added.
When asked if Dadar, the bastion of Shiv Sena, is facing any resistance towards the club/party culture, Almani laughed and said, “Not at all. Even political parties need to party, right?”
For those who are not from Mumbai, Dadar is a neighbourhood that holds the old-world charm. Besides housing a key and one of the busiest railway stations, Dadar is known for its flower market where one can buy from lotus and roses to lilies and chrysanthemums at the best possible rate; Shivaji Park, which served as a grooming ground for Sachin Tendulkar; Sena Bhavan, the central office of Shiv Sena; a vegetable market that can save you from a trip to APMC in Vashi and more.
“When Mumbai was hit by the Bubonic Plague of 1896, Dadar became the first planned suburb of the city. This is why it has footpaths, gardens, wider roads, dedicated plots kept for schools and hospitals, as well as colonies like the Hindu Colony and the Parsi Colony,” said Bharat Gothoskar, founder of Khaki Tours, who has been conducting tours in Mumbai, including Dadar, adding that it is also very richly placed geographically.
“The fact that it connects Central and Western Railways means that it serves as a crossing for the city, seeing a huge influx of people day in and day out. It is this location that led to it becoming a hub for everything, including shopping, culture and even filmmaking. The first film of India, Raja Harishchandra (1913), was shot in Dadar, outside the railway station,” he said, adding that this neighbourhood was a hub for the upper middle class, those who were educated, had white collar jobs and needed better facilities. To cater to the residents and people who would visit this neighbourhood for transit or work, Dadar saw food outlets like Mama Kane, Aaswad and Prakash serving vegetarian Maharashtrian fare or Chaitanya and Sindhudurg, which specialise in seafood or Pritam Da Dhaba, which introduced Punjabi-dhaba-style dining. “There is also a Cafe Colony housing old-fashioned Irani Cafes. Perhaps what it lacked were fine dining restaurants,” he pointed out.
Agrees Mitra Walke, whose mother Surekha started Chaitanya in Malvan in 1993 and brought it to Dadar in 2010. “Dadar lacked big spaces. The existing real estate was already occupied, and one wouldn’t find spaces over 1,000 sq ft in size. If you visit Terttulia, an Italian restaurant in Shivaji Park, you would always find it packed so there was a demand but no space to meet it,” said Walke. He also points out that Dadar’s landscape is changing very rapidly. “Earlier you would largely see three-storey buildings. Now they are being brought down and turned into skyscrapers,” added Walke, who recently took 2,700 sq ft on lease in Kohinoor Square at Rs 7 L per month to open his 110-seater coastal restaurant. Once mired in litigation, the skyscraper boasting of a glazed facade became operational two years ago and serves as a residential and commercial hub with retail and F&B outlets like Westside, Asia Kitchen by Mainland China, Pop Tate’s, Dadar Social among others slowly marking their presence here.
Bastian, which had to shut its Worli restaurant after Bombay Dyeing’s mill land, the Wadia International Centre, went into re-development, is also coming in the same tower. Sharing what led them to enter Dadar, Ranjit Bindra, CEO of Bastian Hospitality, said that after facing a setback in Worli, they were looking for an ideal location, one that would allow them to create a better version of Bastian Worli. “The current location, Kohinoor Square, is strategically located in Dadar. It is about 20 minutes away from Bandra, 10 minutes away from Lower Parel and 10 minutes away from our previous location in Worli.”
Offering a peek into the upcoming restaurant, Bindra added, “It is difficult to find spaces with high ceilings so we replaced it with an expansive rooftop space, offering indoor and outdoor space, and a beautiful view of the Bandra-Worli sea link.” Additionally, it will also have a swimming pool, which will be operational on the weekends.
But would people from SoBo come to Dadar? This question was posed by a PR professional to an intimate gathering of food writers and there was no consensus. “When we opened in Worli, people said that they wouldn’t travel from Colaba but in the end, it is the food and cravings that bring you to this space,” said Bindra.
Addressing the class bias that exists in metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Ravi Wazir, a business consultant for retail and hospitality, said, “Dadar is like vodka, it is neutral enough to be mixed with anything. If you ask anyone who has spent a decade or two in Mumbai about who lives in this neighbourhood, their response would be middle class. What that does is make it free from any bias.
So South Bombay and Worli are posh, Bandra is hip and trendy and pockets beyond Kandivali are seen as down market, but Dadar holds a neutral perception.”
When it comes to finding success, most restauranteurs are hopeful about Dadar with Amlani even maintaining that Social in this neighbourhood is proving to be one of their best-performing outlets. Harisinghani, whose firm did extensive research on various markets of Mumbai, feels that the only difference between Dadar, Bandra and Powai would be the spending capacity.
“If one is dining in Bandra, per person spending Rs 4,000 is not even a blink but if I am hosting the same number in Powai or Chembur, their APC (average propensity to consume) is not going to go beyond Rs 2,000.” Real estate expert Maru places this APC even lower at Rs 1,200, adding that “while a space like Social, which adapts to local neighbourhoods, would do very well in Dadar, the majority of high-end restaurants would end up becoming a weekend business.”
The predictive APC doesn’t bother Bindra, who is targeting the whole of Mumbai. When asked if the price at Dadar restaurant would differ from Bandra, he said there is no need to change the price. “For a seafood restaurant, we are reasonably priced,” he said, adding that Dadar is an untapped market. “After Bastian, people are going to look at Dadar from a different perspective.” When it comes to the audience, the restaurant, he says, will carry forward its legacy.
Source : The Indian Express