Idli, Dosa and a lot of hype!

Finally, took time out to visit the much hyped Rameshwaram Cafe during my latest trip to Bangalore. 

As an ardent foodie, a student of Retail for 27 years and an avid observer of consumer behaviour, I wonder what are they doing so differently for all the hype around. 

It was 8.30pm when I visited the outlet at JP Nagar, one of the busiest neighbourhoods of namma Bengaluru. The place was quite crowded with over 50% non-Kannadigas.

The food I had - button Idli and benne (butter) Dose (Dosa is pronounced that way in typical Kannada!) was normal, usual and as tasty as any other similar eating joint in Bengaluru. 

There were just too many staff in the preparation area - perhaps each part of the making process had arms. 

This leads to a higher cost of operation, but is perhaps recovered with high prices of the menu items! 

Finally, I too lived the hype. Been there, done that. Tick mark on my bucket list.  

But why has the restaurant, now with a few branches and also on a franchise mode garnered so much PR & free publicity? 

I truly didn’t find anything so remarkable in their offering that makes them stand out. Perhaps the name. Perhaps the way they have positioned. 

Possibly, the speed of delivery (my dosa took more time than it would take otherwise in a similar outlet). Am still wondering the what and why of the PR outreach the cafe garnered. 

Here’s wishing them a good run and a great future.

GoV, GMV and Profitability

In a recent post on this platform, one of India’s most successful entrepreneurs Aadit Palicha cribbed how a competitor employee was maligning Zepto - his company’s reputation to potential investors.

For those who may have missed, Zepto is currently raising secondary investment ahead of their much touted IPO.

During their last funding round in 2024, the company was valued at USD 3.5 Bn, perhaps the first ecommerce platfiorm and the fastest to reach such sky high valuations.

In that post, he also shared several details, according to this article which breaks it down.

He says the monthly GoV including Ad-revenues and sales of Fruits and Vegetables in currently INR 2,400 Cr.

Say, INR 300 Cr comes from advertising revenues pm.

Then, it is about INR 70 Cr per day and with an estimated 700 dark stores, that’s 10 lakh per location every single day. Top Hypermarkets in India do not report such daily sales numbers! But Zepto does. Investor money, after all.

With a bill value of INR 350, that’s 2,000 daily transactions. A delivery boy makes around 60 deliveries day and earns up to INR 30 per order. 

Let’s assume Zepto makes a Gross Margin of 20% on each order. That’s INR 70, of which they pay almost half to the driver (which includes fuel cost). 

With the balance, will the dark store, including corporate costs ever be profitable? If so, then every kirana store in this country would have been a rupee millionaire at best. Reality is different. 

I really wish Zepto good luck in their endeavours but will they ever be PAT positive?