Coffee Culture & Now Chai Culture, Will Keep Customers Hitched for A Long Time

Coffee has been an integral part of our lives since forever. With the entry of Starbucks in India, the culture of coffee saw newer heights, with coffee shops and cafes cropping up at every nook and corner. Nowadays, most of the casual meet-ups and small-scale corporate meetings find their way through the stairs of some coffee shop. Considering the stiff competition, a coffee brand that developed into the India market, with the hope to make its place in the cut-throat competitive sphere, has come a long way. Yes, we are talking about Coffee Culture. A brand that aims at creating a local community culture through its outlets. 

In Conversation With Gaurave Naarang, Founder Of Coffee Culture

We had the chance to have a conversation with Gaurave Naarang, founder of Coffee Culture and consultant to many popular restaurants.

It was Naarang’s fascination and love for different concepts that prompted him to venture into in lucrative domain of F&B industry. “Back in 2004 when the idea of Coffee Culture was born – was a time when various international food brands were entering India and were starting their expansion – however, most of the cafes coming in were not serving great food and were more of coffee cafes,” he stated. This sprawling growth of coffee cafes is exactly what he analyzed and capitalized on, and hence created lounge cafes instead of the normal coffee cafes.

Coffee Culture is known for great food with good coffees and super cool ambiance which connects with the local culture. Since it aligns itself with the local culture, Coffee Culture seems to play the chords of all the locals.
“We thought that the name of the brand should be simple and really meaningful. Hence we came up with the name Coffee Culture, through which we tried to connect more deeply with the local community. We try to create elements of the local culture at every outlet so that the locals can relate to us better.”, Naarang stated when asked about how he came up with the brand name.

Naarang’s passion for work and his interest to contribute something to the F&B industry is so intense and strong that he has a consulting firm as well.

Expansion And Franchising of Coffee Culture

Within a time span of about 18 months, a Coffee Culture outlet reaches its breakeven point. With the ultimate goal of reaching 10000 outlets, and with a short-term plan to open 100 outlets by 2021 and 30 outlets by the end of 2018, it is hardly possible to do it all alone. Hence, like many other restaurant entrepreneurs, Naarang thinks franchising is only the viable option that augments expansion. “Out of our 16 outlets, 10 are franchised! We started franchising in 2008.

“Franchising is about creating local partnerships with like-minded and passionate people who want to run our business in their locality. Franchising has helped us to reach various locations and has made it easier for us to expand all over the country”

In order to reinforce his statement on how franchising has helped his brand, he stated, “We currently have 16 outlets in Mumbai, Jaipur, Lucknow, Baroda, Surat, Vapi and we are coming up in Pune, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Rajkot, Anand. By end of 2018, we will be around 30 outlets nationally and internationally”.

Naarang has no intentions of being satisfied with just Coffee Culture. While he has already started Pizza Culture in Inox Cinemas at 2 locations and is signing up for one more, he has some other plans as well. When asked what are those other plans? He signed off by stating, “Chai Culture is coming soon!”.