LALBAGH ROAD:Mavalli Tiffin Rooms, the iconic eatery that began near Lalbagh over nine decades ago, will soon open a London branch.
“It’s not something that we planned; it just fell into place,” says the senior-most of the third generation of the restaurant’s founding family, Hemamalini Maiya.
It was the same with MTR’s Singapore and Dubai franchicees, she told City Express.
The franchisees are as ‘particular and fussy’ as the MTR family about food, so they see eye-to-eye on quality.
In Singapore, they had to fly much of the raw material and the masalas initially. Even now, the cooks are all from Karnataka.
“The other branches in Bengaluru also just happened. The places are all let out by family friends, so we share a great relationship with all our landlords,” she says.
Currently, apart from the main restaurant on Lalbagh Road, MTR eateries are located in Indiranagar, Whitefield, Banashankari (Kanakapura Road), JP Nagar, St Mark’s Road and Gandhinagar, and two more are to open soon.
The new overseas branch, to be located in Stanmore, is likely to start operations in May.
Interestingly, it was after he went on a Europe tour that Yagnanarayana Maiya, one of the founders, was inspired to up hygiene levels, after he rechristened what was earlier called the Brahmin Coffee Club.
“Our focus is on Karnataka cuisine, and we would like to explore the fare from the northern parts of the state too. This is what MTR food is to our customers. I think if we ever were to introduce other cuisines, people will throw stones at us,” she says with a laugh.
While this is a jovial comment, it also reflects how aware the siblings are of the advantages as well as challenges that come with a brand name as well established as theirs. And they say they take care to run the kitchen the way their father, grandfather and great uncles did.
The partners are clear about not wanting to alter the menu on offer abroad; they believe taste is cultivated over a few meals, and they have to maintain prices as low as they possibly can. This has proven a huge challenge.
MTR readying to take its fare to London
“Even if we increase the price of our coffee by two per cent, we’ll have people complaining, telling us how much it cost in the ’70s.” So, their profit margins are small, she says.
And to ensure that they don’t lose money, which according to her they have on some occasions, their focus is on efficiency and ‘plugging leaks’, rather than on expansion.
“We have to keep in mind that we are dealing with people, our employees, and even a packet of turmeric or a few grams of saffron leaving the building unaccounted for can make a big difference if allowed to happen often,” she explains.
The south Indian fare they whipped up till the ’90s during Harishchandra Maiya’s time was very popular, but he was against the idea of opening more branches.
“My father was very particular about that,” she says. And even though the trio went ahead and changed that, they are particular that the business, at least in India, stays within the Maiya family. So as far as expansion to other Indian cities is concerned, they still have to figure out the ifs and hows.
Uncharacteristically for proprietors of a restaurant chain, they openly acknowledge competition from other food joints. “We always say, with every new eatery, no matter which cuisine, there’s more competition because people have one more option,” says Hema.
Meanwhile, this makes the eating-out culture, which she believes both eateries and customers benefit from, all the richer. “So the competition is healthy. We don’t want to cut into anyone else’s business, and that’s how it should be with every one,” she says.
Taking over the reins
These challenges apart, the going has been smooth, it seems. This, however, was not so when Hema was required to step into her father’s shoes 16 years ago, a day after his death.
She had to work with people who had seen her grow up, and as the first woman to actively participate in the business, let alone spearhead it, wasn’t easy.
“The manager and staff were sympathetic, and without their saying it, it was understood that they would accept me then because there was no one else,” she says.
She found that her father’s prolonged illness had taken a toll on the business, and she had to revive something she barely understood.
“I’ve had rogue elements in my kitchen. At the end of the day, you just go home and wait for the next day’s problems to come crashing on your head,” she says, describing how she felt then.
But, as always, she was rooted to her past, drawing inspiration from her grandfather and his brothers, who travelled all the way from a small village near Udupi to a strange city in the 1920s to take up jobs as cooks, and five year’s later, encouraged by their employers, start selling idlis and coffee.
“I realise that every adversity was capitalised on. During the Emergency, when the restaurant was forced to close down, they made instant mixes to sell in the shop below, and a new line was born,” she says, adding that this drive is what made her take over the business, so that two generations’ effort wouldn’t come to an end. “But as any woman entrepreneur would have experienced, I realised that my approach had to be different from a man’s. And I had it much harder than my brothers would have,” she says.
Dealing with labour is still very hard, she says, and it’s something that the younger of her two brothers, Aravind, manages. He is also the technical arm of the team. Her other brother Vikram takes care of communication and the logistics of opening new branches, including coordinating travel and passports for overseas ones.
“For everything else, we all pitch in. Whenever we disagree on something, we put our heads together and then arrive at a decision. So we argue a lot, but we never fight,” says Hema, summing up the relationship she shares with her brothers.