You both are third-gen to the company. How have you seen the brand grow and innovate at the same time?

At K Hospitality level, the aim has been to focus the organizational energies towards building scalable formats, deepening our footprint into existing key clusters and metros we are present in, and investing into building strong consumer brands. We believe this strategy helps set us up for future growth into new markets, and we have continued to invest back into the businesses in new innovations in consumer experience, category enhancement and operational efficiencies.

You recently celebrated 50 years of first copper chimney restaurant in India. What has been some of the top learnings while running a legacy chain?

The importance of consistency and quality experience for your customers first. We continue to work with the same suppliers over many decades; the quality of ingredients, and making investments into enhancing customer experience continuously, while retaining the core essence of the brand, have been key enablers for the successful profitable growth of Copper Chimney. Today it is one of the leading North Indian restaurant brands, and we aim to continue to grow it steadily from strength to strength over the next 50 years.

Varun, you mostly look after the travel hospitality segment. How has this segment changed post covid? What all innovation you have introduced?

We have seen a very strong bounce back in domestic travel, despite discussions around WFH. We see the highway segment growing in the years to come, due to which we will be opening up multiple highway stops which will have multi-brand food courts on prominent highways across India. Further we are now expanding our innovative airport lounge offering to global markets and partnering with leading F&B brands both in India and around the world to bring them to the Indian traveller.

Karan, how has the restaurant business changed? Which segment you see grow in the next couple of years and where do you want to invest in?

We do believe the QSR and Catering business has strong potential for growth, and we are step by step building up plans to scale up our new Indian QSR brand, JOSHH, and moving into new markets with our catering business under Catering Collective, with Blue Sea Catering and Pavitra.

What are some of the signature dishes that your restaurant that is still on the top ordered items?

Undoubtedly, the Kadak Roomali, Burrah Chops, our signature melt-in-your-mouth Paneer dishes, and White Pepper Chicken Chops, which have been on our menus since 1972, and still are enjoyed by our guests 50 years later.

Also, if we look at the market, last 2-3 years was about QSR, delivery and cloud-kitchen. What’s your plan expanding in this segment?

A majority of our outlets today are QSR led in travel retail, offices and shopping malls. We will continue to grow our QSR business across these channels, while building our branded strategy with JOSHH starting with Mumbai and scaling up nationally in the coming decade.

What’s your dine-in vs delivery ration across brands?

This varies across brand to brand given the wide variety of concepts and sectors we are in.

You are running a multi-brand, multi-franchise company. What has been the most easy/difficult part of running such a diverse business?

While it may be unfair to mark something as the easiest or most difficult, one of the important aspects towards succeeding is investing into the right team structures and governance processes to ensure customer experience and consistency is maintained, while implementing synergies across the businesses and brands.

Why franchising is always a good mode to expand the business beyond boundary?

We believe that in new countries, franchising helps as the local franchisee understand the market and its customer better than enter yourself. For your organization, the learning curve can be quite steep, which requires a very long-term vision and approach. Simultaneously it is important to remember that franchising needs a focused approach and team to manage your franchisees, and without organizational support, it can as easily fail and damage your brand in these new markets.

Trends you foresee.

A few trends we see on the consumer and business side are (1) The growing need for convenience is going to be a big theme that will further enhance the customer experience and change how brands approach their customer journeys, (2) The democratization of technology will enable small and medium restaurants up their technology game and introduce new innovations for their customers, and (3) Indian food will continue to lead, despite competition from international cuisines and brands.

Tips for young/new age restaurant owners?

Stay focused on a single concept and build systems to scale consistently.

CSR initiative at K Hospitality Corp that you would want to talk about.

We have setup an independent foundation, K Corp Charitable Foundation, which focuses on fighting hunger and malnutrition. The foundation team works in the area of first 1000 days of life, primarily working with pregnant mothers, new-born babies and young children, to ensure a malnutrition free India. We currently work with over 10,000 households, across rural, semi-rural and tribal areas, and are looking to build a scalable impact model in this area in the decades to come.