BENGALURU: Bengaluru is home to an inclusive eatery in the city with queer-centric employment in focus. Launched on January 9, Pride Café is a moving food joint, a food truck venture, run by members of the LGBTQIA+ community. City’s Shubha Chacko, the executive director of the Solidarity Foundation, who birthed the idea for the café, feels a major reason for the initiative was to change the perceptions about the LGBTQIA+ community.
“In our society, the community has a bit of a negative perception, which isn’t correct. Some perceive them as aggressive and not contributors to society. We wanted to change that and bring some positive visibility. The café also helps open livelihood opportunities for many members of the community and lets them be in a space where they weren’t seen before,” says Chacko. The cafe is run by Solidarity Foundation alongside companies Amadeus and WeWork. It was inaugurated by renowned thespian Arundathi Nag and Alex Mathew, a city-based drag queen.
As of now, the food truck has been faring well in its business. “It’s actually got a good reception. We are planning to look at two other venues. Initially, we also thought we’ll move around and that’s why we got a truck. But we also had plans of having it stationary in a particular place like Cubbon Park, for example. But then there was a fear of harassment and that would have defeated the whole purpose, which was to provide the employees with a dignified working space,” she says. She adds that the expansion plans are expected to come to fruition by June this year. The food truck now operates at WeWork Galaxy on Residency Road.
While the venture is always open to hiring members of the LGBTQIA+ community, they also have professional chefs who assist the employees. “A big reason why the food truck opened was because we discovered that many from the community are interested in cooking. But a big challenge was to learn how to cook in a professional setting. It is very different from cooking for family and friends. So, we have chefs who help them get up to speed with the process. We also have a varied menu comprising of multiple cuisines, so the chefs were a great help there as well,” Chacko explains.
To ensure that the mental health of the employees is taken care of, they are also in contact with a support system. “We have many people coming in as peer supporters. We’ve also linked to professional counsellors who are community-friendly. And this is a subset of the training that we did with them. We did sessions around emotions at the workplace and are also planning to continue doing those sessions regularly on Saturdays alongside some English classes,” she concludes. The food truck doesn’t operate on Saturday and Sunday due to less footfall but according to some reports, they have been travelling across the city (instead of usually working out of co-working spaces) on weekends in an attempt to expand.