Leading eateries and bars like Lord of the Drinks, Farzi Cafe, Social, and Imperfecto want to expand outside of the major metropolises, so live music, bars, and pubs will soon bring the party feel to Ranchi, Indore, Jabalpur, Raipur, and other similar smaller cities.
“Metropolitan cities have reached a point of no return and have no room to grow.” There are virgin marketplaces where there is a lot of demand at the same time. We have plans to open restaurants in Jaipur, Chandigarh, Indore, Dehradun, and Lucknow in 2023, according to Sharad Madan, co-founder of Bel Cibo Hospitality, which owns the Imperfecto and Khubani networks of eateries.
In the country’s retail consumption, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Lucknow, Indore, Bhubaneshwar, Visakhapatnam, and Coimbatore will see fresh growth.
“Quality space has begun to appear in smaller cities as well, but residents there must travel to the neighboring town to partake in nightlife.” As a result, many bars have plans to expand, according to Shriram PM Monga, co-founder of the retail consultant SRED.
Massive Restaurants, which runs restaurants under the brands Farzi Café and Papaya, is actively courting smaller cities. In fact, non-metropolitan cities are home to some of the best-performing stores nationwide. Numerous non-metropolitan cities have received excellent feedback. There is a strong propensity to spend money. However, there aren’t many places to spend money, according to Massive Restaurants Private Limited’s managing director, Zorawar Kalra.
By the middle of 2023, the company hopes to grow from its current 22 cities, which include Nagpur, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Bhopal, Indore, Raipur, Kanpur, and Ahmedabad, to 27 cities.
Experts noted that the entire market appears to be growing extremely quickly as new, high-quality national brands enter the market. They said that when compared to metro areas, sales and even the average price per cover are comparable and occasionally even greater.
“We deliver our Lord of the Drinks and other brands to cities like Ranchi, Surat, and Bhopal. Additionally, we are aiming for popular tourist destinations like Jim Corbett, Jaipur, and Goa. According to Priyank Sukhija, CEO of First Fiddle restaurants, which runs brands like Warehouse Cafe, Tamasha, Lord of the Drinks, and Flying Saucer Cafe, “we see a great possibility in smaller areas, and now space is also not an issue there.”
Many business owners said that some of their best restaurants are in Tier 2 cities.
According to Mayank Bhatt, CEO of Impresario Entertainment & Hospitality, “with increased spending appetite and penetration of social media, people are now well informed about cuisines and tastes, hence we are looking at expansion in semi-urban markets.” Our KPIs for introducing “Social” in smaller cities are based on the performance and success of Mocha, which was introduced earlier in these non-metros. We then schedule the introduction of our outpost depending on customer input. In these markets, we plan to introduce three to four social stores in the upcoming year.
According to market experts, given that food and drink consumption is India’s most popular form of entertainment, this may be the best chance for retail there. Food spending accounts for 40 times more of India’s gross disposable income than Bollywood does.
Before moving to another metropolis, it is preferable to test out a smaller city where rental expenses are lower and the ROI (return on investment) is nearly as high as in a metropolis. According to Akshay Anand, partner of Campbell Hospitality, which runs Toy Room and Cozy Box, “We are in discussions to take some of our brands to tier-2 and tier-3 locations.”