PUNE: Love for food and passion for cooking has successfully made every lane in the city filled with ambrosial aroma and delicious food. But then will this passion help them earn money for a livelihood?
Well, for many IT professionals, who left their well-paid jobs, just to follow their passion, however, there’s a note of caution from Aniruddha Patil, founder of Pune Eat Outs, social media group for food lovers.
Patil said, “People, who jumped into food business from a shift job, majority of the time fail as they do not have enough skill, experience, unique product or quality, management practice, etc. Later, unable to make enough money, they go back to their previous job.”
But then, there are people like Dipak and Suvarna Pawar, a couple, who left their well paid jobs, to run a restaurant successfully with their hard work and sheer determination. They run Hotel Bhairavi in Pimpri Chinchwad. Dipak was a mechanical engineer and earned around Rs 2 lakh a month whereas Survana was involved with a recruitment team in an MNC and earned around Rs 30,000 a month.
Dipak said, “We were big fans of non-veg food, which motivated us to cook delicious non-veg dishes, which our hotel is known for. Before starting the restaurant, the shift job was becoming hectic for both of us and we were not able to do the things we love the most. That motivated us to get the idea and start the restaurant in May 2017. At the initial stage, we were not earning as much as our paid jobs but we were happy to work for ourselves.”
He further added, “In six to seven months, we matched our earlier earnings and today it’s more than expectation. The restaurant served authentic home-made food and specialities in spicy non-veg food, which met the needs of the IT crowd, as they miss home-made food.”
Survana said, “The lakhs earned in doing nine to five jobs never give us that peace of mind, which we are getting now. We knew running a business is a more laborious job but working with my family gives me a different feel.”
La Kheer Deli, a food truck situated near Aundh, is owned by a person, who works as a sales manager in a company simultaneously. Shivang Sood, the creator of this unique idea, who runs the food business on weekends, said, “The motto was to be the exception in this market. Each and every move has a different reason, which let us experience fame and money in such a short term. The food truck is only run on weekends (Friday to Sunday) so that our customers look forward to weekends to visit us. Also, we have only four items on our menu so that our customers don’t have a hard time to choose and get to have all the items on their visit.”
Patil added, “Business should be driven with a passion but it should have its necessary qualities too to support the business. People should know that business is a laborious job and sometimes requires more potential and effort than a shift job. If they have the qualities, they surely will shine”.
