HYDERABAD: Hyderabad does not have a beach, which is why business owners have been kind enough to fill the void with coffee shops. If you can’t hear the ocean waves, you can at least sit in Third Wave. Drive from Jubilee Hills to Gachibowli, and I promise you’ll pass more coffee shops than potholes.
There are now officially more coffee shops than people actually drinking coffee and that’s a fact. If your café isn’t run by Tata, doesn’t have an authentic reputation, or lacks a gang of freeloading friends constantly hanging out, it’s probably empty. These cafés were supposedly created to keep the IT crowd awake during extra hours of coding, startup planning, or just taking a well-earned break. But most of them are frugal enough to stick to free office coffee, fill their souls with nicotine vapes, or just stick to good old chai and a cigarette.
But that doesn’t stop these coffee shop owners from trying.
If you’re opening a coffee shop, the first rule is simple: your name must have the word “coffee” in it. This is crucial, because apparently, without that word, we’ll all confuse a room full of coffee mugs, espresso machines, and the smell of freshly brewed beans with a shawarma joint.
Most names follow the predictable formula of “[Something] Coffee” or “Coffee [Something].” But if you think the word “coffee” is overused, get creative! Why not go with a spelling mistake, like “Kofee” or “Quoffee,” so customers think it’s some fancy Spanish brand and walk in immediately, expecting to sip on something exotic.
Now that you’ve named your coffee shop, it’s time to light it up. And by that, I mean light it up like it’s a Bollywood set. The goal is to create enough light pollution to blind passing motorists, or at least activate the moth DNA in people and pull them inside. Make it so bright that God himself might mistake it for the entrance to heaven.
After someone buys one coffee, chances are, they’re not coming back. Why? Because like most things in life, 90% of coffee shops are mediocre. But here’s the genius move: turn your customers into cult members! Offer them a membership card. If I wanted to be part of a group, I would have hung out with my friends and family instead of pretending to enjoy the Japanese matcha latte that’s actually punishing my innocent taste buds.
If the sheer number of coffee shops didn’t confuse you, wait till you see the menu. The good old Americano and Cappuccino were at least invented by baristas, but everything beyond that? That’s the work of an MBA graduate tasked with maximising profit. Spiced coffee? Orange coffee? Sitaphal coffee? Are you serving coffee or a fruit salad?
But the MBA touch doesn’t stop at the menu. Oh no, it spills over into the “vibe” of the coffee shop itself. There’s a café designed to look like your favorite TV show, a café for your soul, a café where your sins are forgiven.
I think the café owners are drinking more coffee than the customers, which is keeping them always awake and ready for new twists in the coffee game.
(The writer’s views are his own)
Sandesh Johnny
@johnnykasandesh
(This comedian is here to tell funny stories about Hyderabad)