BENGALURU: The family that introduced the popular Maddur vade from the platform of the Maddur railway station has shut its iconic establishment. This was the stall’s 100th year running and it was slated to complete a century of cooking the onion-flavoured fritters, a favourite snack with rail passengers, on April 20.
A combination of factors led to the shutdown —the huge annual licence fee charged by the Railways since 2012, competition from other vendors who sold it inside the trains unauthorised and the doubling of the Mysuru-Bengaluru line which ensured that most trains stopped only between 30 seconds and one minute at Maddur station.
The closure of ‘Vegetarian Refreshment Room’ was effected following the completion of its contract with the Railways.
Choked with emotion, proprietor D Jayaprakash, whose great-grandfather is said to have perfected the recipe, told Express, “We chose not to tell the world about it. This is something very emotional for me. It was like a father-son relationship I shared with my refreshment stall, with me in the role of the son.” Jayaprakash continues to run the Maddur Tiffanys next to Satyagraha Soudha on the Bengaluru-Mysuru Highway.