Yash Khaitan, a young entrepreneur, hails from Rajasthan and lived in U.P before moving to Goa in 1998. Living in Goa the Khaitan family felt the need for a pure vegetarian restaurant. The love for traditional cuisine made him open The Rasoda. The Rasoda started in 2018, located at Panaji, offering authentic Rajasthani and North Indian cuisine along with the delectable sweet store. True to its tagline, ‘Royally Yours’, The Rasoda doesn’t fail to offer royal food to the patrons at an affordable price.
In Conversation With Yash Khaitan of The Rasoda
In an exclusive conversation with The Restaurant Times, Yash Khaitan, talks of his journey in the industry, the story behind The Rasoda, ensuring customer satisfaction, marketing strategy and a lot more.
About The Rasoda
The Rasoda in Rajasthani and Gujrati means ‘the kitchen’. The Khaitan family being Marwaris had the desire to serve the Goan community with Rajasthani food and that is how it all started! The USP of The Rasoda is that all the food prepared here is cooked in pure ghee. They absolutely use no artificial substances or synthetics in their food. You can tell about the purity of the food by the aroma of the dish. Yash tells that all the ingredients are procured straight from Rajasthan to make the food more authentic. The thalis are the must-try dishes at the restaurant, especially the Rajasthani thali and the Punjabi thali. Apart from the Thalis, the most popular sweets at the restaurant are the Rasmalai. They also prepare their own Mawa sweets, with pure ingredients.
‘Nowadays there is a lot of mixing in the Mawa, they mix Rawa and Plaster Of Paris, but we at The Rasoda, never compromise on quality. The cost of making Mawa is more than the actual selling price,’ says Yash.
The sweets are also made in pure ghee and they also use less sugar. They have sweets ranging from The Mitha Cake, Anarkali, Anjeer Barfi, Aata Gond Ladoos, Moong Dal laddus, Balushai, Besan Ki Chakki, and the list is unending!
Choosing The Right Location
The Khaitan family has been in Goa for more than 20 years now and they are well versed with Old Goa. The world is moving and so are the people. People are so full of adventure nowadays and they love exploring new cuisines and places. Goans have wholeheartedly accepted The Rasoda and it is a quality brand in Goa now.
It was a challenge initially to convince the Goans that everything made here is cooked in pure ghee and is unadulterated. But they were successful in making a place in Goa and emerging as a successful brand.
Yash chose Kadamba to setup The Rasoda because according to their market analysis this area would grow in the next two to three years. Being residents of the same area, there was a dearth of good vegetarian restaurants at Kadamba so it was a great opportunity for them to flourish.
According to Yash, the other locations to open a similar outlet like his, are in Margao because of the huge Gujrati and Marwari population and Cavala, because it is highly populated.
Marketing Techniques
Running a restaurant is much more than just putting great food on plates. One needs an excellent location and environment, also, exemplary customer service and staff, and a management team that can run a tight ship. As a restaurateur, one needs to focus on the clever ways of promoting the restaurant so that the general public knows about your excellent eating house. Marketers suggest that 80% of the budget should be allocated to online marketing and the remaining 20% should be allocated to traditional marketing. Yash being a traditional cuisine restaurant, use both traditional and digital methods of marketing.
The ‘old’ method of marketing doesn’t mean ‘outdated’ marketing. Traditional restaurant marketing is still arguably the best way to really precisely target an audience. It’s very easy to print some flyers, stand out the front of your establishment, and hand them out to a smile as people walk past.
Not everyone who is going to eat at your restaurant is a social media user. There are definitely several types of print marketing. Yash has put up hoardings at different locations of Goa advertising about their restaurant. Also, leveraging to flyers is a technique used by them to advertise their restaurant to the customers.
Apart from this, they leverage social media marketing by posting about their ghee-licious pictures with quirky captions on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Technology Bedding and Secret Sauce To Success
The hospitality and foodservice business is a major player in the economy. To achieve unbeatable efficiency, offering excellent service, good food, one would require modern technology and restaurant hardware.
With the coming of POS software, it allows restaurants to deliver great customer service by managing orders, payment, and promotions. They also ensure that restaurant management is made easier through reporting, stock, and labour control. Apart from this, real-time reports and analytics and various additional features are also available.
A 2016 Restaurant Trade Survey found that 63% of restaurant owners would invest in technology if it made day-to-day operations more efficient.
Yash has been using Posist for the last eight months and it has made life simpler for him. The stock inventory module has helped in managing the inventory efficiently. Proper inventory management practice greatly increases the likelihood that shoppers’ desired items will be in stock, in turn boosting customer satisfaction and encouraging repeat visits to your store. It also enables to avoid losing sales to the competition if particular item customers want is unavailable when they wish to purchase it.
Yash tells that success is an ongoing process and it is essential to work hard and keep striving till you achieve your aim.
