thousand words and I’m gonna give you a
thousand word story about the changing
face of the restaurant business in this
country
in exactly one picture and that’s it
that’s it I’m not kidding I’m done
they said fifteen minutes I needed one
much like you’re two weeks okay but
seriously this business is this clicker
is not working okay but seriously so I’m
gonna take you through a couple of quick
things that have really made a massive
difference in the restaurant business in
this country over the last I’d say eight
to ten years and specifically over the
last five the first one is something
that Hussein talked about a little while
ago social media social media has killed
us you know we used to wake we used to
wait for critics and we would wait with
fear and trepidation that oh my god I’m
gonna get reviewed and we’d wait in the
morning to say what are these guys gonna
say now everyone’s a critic and we get
up this every single morning look at our
Twitter feed we check snapchat we’re
looking at Facebook we’re looking at
instability in stories and a million
other things not to mention we’re
googling ourselves on our own
restaurants who’s got something to say
it’s gone ballistic everyone’s a critic
everyone’s a photographer really great
cameras that makes stuff really hard for
us and that makes stuff really hard
because now we don’t just have to worry
about food tasting great we have to
worry about how it looks we have to
worry about what someone’s going to
think about the plate and that’s why
things are changing really dramatically
today nobody’s serving you food and
plates you’re getting food and shovels
in toy trains I’m waiting for the day
someone puts it in a bathroom ugh I
really hope that doesn’t happen
moving on you guys customers are more
educated than ever then ever ever ever
before
you know what you want your
well-traveled you’ve read so much and
you watch MasterChef Australia so
suddenly you know a hell of a lot more
than we do but it’s true look why are we
in this business we’re in the business
for you guys and the real catalyst to
the changing restaurant business in this
country is each and every one of you as
customers if you guys didn’t push the
boundaries if you guys didn’t critique
us we wouldn’t do all the stuff that we
did we would never change you know when
I was growing up there were three types
of food in this country Indian Chinese
ginger B and what we called continental
controller was a mishmash of everything
if it had passed I on it if there was
pizza on the menu if there was a white
sauce in a red sauce it was continental
story over and in Mumbai specifically it
was like going back to school because
you’d go to a restaurant and you’d
exercise your creativity without talking
about a specific community they said huh
school if you took white paint and you
took red paint and you mix them together
you would get pink paint
let’s make pasta with pink sauce and I’m
sure you some of you in this room are
familiar with it because I can see you
guys smiling but that said restaurants
themselves have evolved restaurants one
of three types either you had the simple
family places that you would go to or
you had the slightly fancier places and
then you had the five-star hotels today
every category has a million categories
in it Chinese doesn’t really exist today
it’s pea nation and within that you have
Japanese and Korean and Vietnamese and
Thai and it never ends
even within those you will have
categories there’s a guy who does sushi
there’s somebody else who does ramen but
you guys know a lot about that in the
same vein if you look at this whole
continental space earlier it used to be
if you had pasta pizza and maybe a salad
on your menu you were Conti now there
are French restaurants there’s Spanish
restaurants or Italian restaurants and
then there are restaurants I’d put them
all three together and call themselves
modern contemporary
European and it works beautifully bars
are changing India is returning whiskey
in fact we drank more Black Label in
this country than was produced in the
world and a lot of it was coming out of
some really dubious places but that’s
changing to today you’re talking about
cocktails gin is back Jager bombs no
sorry I’m talking to school change of
topic
but hey listen truly the real reason
that restaurant business in this country
is changing is each and every one of you
well-traveled well-read curious
aspirational minds waiters service staff
chefs can’t make a fool out of guests
anymore not that they used to but they
really can’t pretend that something is
not what it is what it truly is and the
other great thing that has come about
because consumers have changed and
consumers are more well-read is that
today we realize that substance is as
important as form so it’s not just about
presentation and let me tell you that’s
not just about the restaurant business
that’s a little learning for anything
that you do substance is always going to
be as important as form okay tech
failure doesn’t matter someone fix this
while I continue let’s talk about a
great disrupter another thing that’s
changed the face of the restaurant
industry is anyone know scootsie swiggy
ubereats thank you guys thank you
now nobody needs to come to my
restaurant because they can eat at home
but hey listen that’s actually a good
thing because now every single person
has access to top quality food top
college top-quality chefs produce in the
comfort of their home but that comes
with its own set of stress for us as
restaurant does what you eat in a
restaurant when it’s served to you then
is not going to taste the same as it
does at home yeah
we still go ahead and sign up with these
guys because it allows us a larger
footprint where I have X amount of space
and I can bring in X amount of customers
now I have this fantastic opportunity
sitting in front of me to reach out to
hundreds of more people whether at work
whether it offices and that makes all
the difference okay I went up or down a
bit let’s go back up to the previous one
everything is available unlike when I
was growing up where I had two choices
at every meal I was really lucky kid I
had two choices of every meal eat or
starve you should have met my parents
they still do that today I can sit in
Mumbai and I can have a Chilean seabass
I can have Japanese edamame
I can have Thai galangal right here and
it’s fresh it’s not frozen more
importantly when I say everything is
available there’s a massive movement
towards more local produce we are truly
realizing the real value of our own
country and the produce that comes out
of this country and it is amazing it’s
truly amazing people are moving into
organics people are realizing that what
we have as a culture as a food culture
going back to the bhagavad-gita is truly
fantastic there’s a fantastic move
towards eating healthier eating cleaner
and I’m not talking about fad diets like
someone’s keto someone’s a vegetarian
someone’s a vegan someone is gluten-free
someone is dairy-free
I’m not referring to those I’m talking
about the real essence of food and the
real essence of food is that food has to
be good for your gut it has to nurture
your gut and that’s what Indian
ingredients do my last point to you guys
is that the most interesting thing that
has happened over the last ten years is
we as restaurant as an as a community we
don’t compete with each other anymore
there’s this massive fantastic movement
of collaboration today restauranteurs
are popping up their properties within
other people’s properties there are
restauranteurs that are going out to
homegrown brands and saying why don’t
you guys pop up within us there are
restauranteurs as a community that are
being built and coming together
saying why don’t we go to the landlords
who kill us on rent all the time but
let’s not go as one let’s go as six guys
together and build hubs because food and
beverage is always fantastic in hubs I’m
going to end this in a few minutes with
a little video that I want you guys to
see which will choose resonate with
everything that everybody else has
that’s it that’s all I got for you guys
anything that’s gonna reach out to me
feel free do [Applause]