It’s been 14 years since Aniruddha Patil launched Pune Eat Outs (PEO) on Facebook. Over the years, it has become one of the most active and talked-about community on social media.
Patil, who started the group out of pure passion, is very happy with the way the community has been thriving, with more and more foodies, food bloggers, restaurateurs, home chefs and those related to Pune food industry, joining them.
“Though we have a good presence in Pune, we want to continue sensitising people towards the entire eco system. By people, we mean customers and restaurant owners because this industry will do well only if these two are happy,” says Patil. He adds that this can be achieved when one keeps on doing events, meeting people and so on.
LAUNCHING PEO
Pune Eat Outs first started on Orkut in 2005 and later moved to Facebook in 2009, not as a business but as a platform to share information. “There was not too much thought put into its structure back then; it was only a platform to share information with fellow foodies. For example, we have more than century-old Aware Maratha Khanawal in the city and there are people who have spent their life in Pune, yet don’t know about its existence. We wanted to reach out to people with such information,” Patil says, adding, “Also, if restaurants opened at Koregaon Park, there was no way a person living in Aundh would know about it, unless they were commuting there. Word-of-mouth and travel are the ways to know about restaurants. The social media explosion in the following years has helped reach out to a larger community of food lovers.”
He adds that they knew they had to monetise the community to take it in a certain direction. But it came in much later. Today, PEO has got around 1,15,000 members. Patil says that he wasn’t ever bothered about the numbers but he knew they were doing something special when the city and national media noticed them in 2005.
So has PEO become the bridge between customers and restaurants today? “Completely. Restaurants have their social media groups but we never allow them on this group. Only owners are allowed,” says Patil, who works as a consultant with the F&B industry.
PEO organises quarterly meets where foodies come together and discuss the latest trends in the industry. In 2015, they announced the first-ever PEO Privilege Card, a mobile application which allows PEO members to browse through all #FriendsOfPEO — restaurant partners, events and festivals where members can avail Bonus Privilege; they can also book through the app and get in touch with the restaurants directly.
Patil met his wife on the same community, he informs.
THE CHANGING FOOD INDUSTRY
Patil, who left his engineering job to concentrate on PEO, believes that the food industry in the city has grown immensely in the last one decade. “Compared to other Indian cities, we have a long way to go. But at least we know what we do not know. Thanks to the internet and social media, we know about different concepts in terms of cuisines, ingredients, experiments,” he says.
A foodie himself, he says that people keep talking about the culinary experience they had in a different city. But to have a similar experience in Pune, they have to shell out more. “These special cuisines come at a certain cost. If we are paying to have the same experience in a different city, why not here?,” he questions.
Citing an example, he says, “Maharashtrian cuisine is known for its simplicity, it’s made without much fuss and is quite reasonably priced. It’s popular but when we have guests coming over from abroad or other cities, we don’t know where to take them. A few fine dining Maharashtrian restaurants had opened but they had to shut shop as we were not willing to pay for it. Anything new will come for a price,” he says.
Patil observes that people here may not try out new cuisines but they will definitely put it up in their wish list. “Pune was always a home-grown market. Now there are many brands from other cities coming here. In addition, we see many people going back to the basics — reviving food cooked by our grandmothers, mothers, also methods like cooking in an earthen pot. There is a combination of new ideas and traditional methods of cooking,” he says.
He adds that the biggest challenge of the food industry is that restaurants have to please patrons depending on their mood every single day.
PUNE’S ‘VALUE FOR MONEY’ CUSTOMERS
Patil observes that for Pune crowd, it’s all about ‘value for money’. “We are a very culturally rich city and there are many restaurant owners, specially in the old parts of the city, for whom food was a way to give back to society, not just to make money. They run these restaurants with lesser margin and serve good quality food. If the customer knows that they will get best quality food at a certain price, they will compare it to the places with higher price range,” Patil says, adding, “When Starbucks opened in Mumbai, people queued up but it was not so here. When they gave coffee at Rs 99, Puneites lined up,” he says.
UNDERSTANDING THE FOOD BUSINESS
Many new restaurants are emerging across the city but at the same time, many are shutting down too. This, says Patil, is because people, who have no or little knowledge about the industry, are entering it. “It’s easy to get food and alcohol license in Maharashtra compared to other places. So, restaurants are not only easily opening but also shutting down,” he points out.
“For restaurants to be in the business, ‘They have to serve what they promise’. They might not be serving great food but they are always crowded because they live up to their promise. In fact, my job as an internal customer with many of the restaurants is to see if they are doing it right,” he adds.
