Support us to revisit our dream

Respected Sir/Madam,

We sincerely request your valuable time in going through our journey for the last 15 months which has been shared herewith.

OUR INTRODUCTION

We are three (3) aspiring individuals hailing from middle class family background from South Bengaluru, India. Mahesh [45], Guruprasad [40] and Varadaraj [33]. Mahesh worked as a Sales Manager for a Pharmaceutical company and Guruprasad worked as a HR Manager for a Telecom Company. Both are married and have a kid each. Varadaraj, is a bachelor and has worked as a Marketing Manager for a Advertising Company.

Mahesh & Guruprasad are brothers whereas, Varadaraj is known to both as an ex-colleague and as a friend for about 12 years, being residents of neighboring localities.

IDEA….DREAM

Having put our hardwork for years as committed professionals, we Alike any aspiring individuals, had a dream to become much stronger and secured financially in the years to come. Our like mindedness, good understanding, positive approach towards achieving our dream were our plus points to decide on starting a business venture of our own.

After a lot of discussions amongst ourselves and relative market study, we identified food industry to be highly potential and decided to get into restaurant business [Aug, 2017]. Bengaluru being a leading and fastest growing city in the world has a huge demand for quality food and service. This being one of the most sought after business in the city today which has brought-in even potential investors even from IT and Engineering background. Being localites, born and brought up in Bengaluru, we were pretty confident of doing decent restaurant business in the area of preference.

PROJECT REPORT AND BUDGET (PRE-PROJECT PHASE)

We did prepare required commercial projections in terms of the overall project requirements such as Site, Plant & Machinery, Furniture and Fixtures, Civil Work, Manpower Resource planning with a backup for initial 3 months. Overall project cost was accounted at Rs.30 Lakhs. After approaching various financial institutions for their support in terms of funding the project, Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) Cantonment Branch, came forward to assist us in terms of Term Loan to the extent of 10Lacs. We shelled in all our savings, gold and hand loans at hefty rate of interest to fill in the Balance Rs. 20Lacs.

As per the projections, we finalized a place in Malleshwaram locality (Bengaluru – North) which is considered as one of the leading and potential localities for food joints in the city.

Our dream and passion was to offer Authentic, Quality food service to the customers. Unlike being 1/10 hoteliers, we Intend to provide authentic South Indian food alongwith Chinese & Chats. Our Hospitality with customers should be the trump card as our motto was to serve quality, authentic and tasty food to customers. Each of the installation and civil work, we stood physically to monitor the work and progress.

Day in and day out, we sweat out in the hot sun to complete the work on schedule. All the major works such as Plant and Machinery installation, Civil Work, Furnitures and Interiors were assigned to different vendors in line with Term Loan procedures of the bank.

PROJECT LAUNCH - INAUGURATION

But due to various reasons predominantly financial, the overall execution of the project took us almost 6 months. We have paid the site rental for this period even without business, for the only reason that we shouldn’t give up this once-a-lifetime opportunity as saying goes problems are stepping stones for any major success. Being from middle class family, having exhausted all our savings and hand loans in place, imagine the kind of pressure on us to start the project? In spite of all these hurdles and challenges, we were lucky enough to launch our project on 21^st June, 2018. We named it Café RCB (Rajaratna Café Bengaluru).

EVENTS ATTENDED AND PARTICIPATED

Our Passion was not only limited to Restaurant operations. We did attend and catered to the requirement of couple of programmes such as Engagement Ceremony, Post-Marriage events and other small events. Also, we did participate in the food festival held at PESIT University, Banashankari in Sep ‘18. We had placed our stall and did receive a very good response and feedback from those who attended.

t the project? In spite of all these hurdles and challenges, we were lucky enough to launch our project on 21^st June, 2018. We named it Café RCB (Rajaratna Café Bengaluru).

POST LAUNCH & DOWNFALL

We had a very good start of the business. There was a positive growth trend of 5-12% week-on-week. Average business per day was about 8-9k in the weekdays and in the weekends It was around 12-14k per day. We and our families did really cry and thought that all our hardwork, problems for these 6-8 months are over and we shall definitely will clear off all our backlogs….!!! But this trend continued for about 1 month until we came across a disaster (really dont know what to call?) which hit our business like a tsunami.

A major sewage line repair work, which was carried out by Bangalore water supply and sewage board and bbmp(bangalore city municipal authority) in our street for almost 2 months [July-August-Sep 18], that too right opposite our restaurant. This came in as a devastation and Hampered our day-to-day business operations leading to a serious downfall in the business. The entire road stretch opposite our restaurant was blocked leading to complete halt of men and material movement. Business came down by almost 60-70% immediately from day one. The average business dropped down to 1-2k per day. Even repeated customers stopped visiting. This repair work hampered us in a very big way as we had just launched the business and started to settle. This not only hampered us but also to each and every commercial shop/neighbours in our street, who have been staying there for many years.

We could not resist the downfall of the business as the average break-in was around 10K to be mandatorily paid against Rental, Groceries, Vegetables, Milk, Resources Salary & Accommodation (Daily basis). We approached the local BBMP office for their support to complete the work immediately, but to our bad luck, the work kept on elongating for about 2+ months.

We did submit a request to Prime Minister’s office for their support in terms of recommending the bank for release of additional loan to sail through this critical phase. But the bank did not agree for the same in line with their internal bank policy.

We had exhausted all our savings including a bit of gold at home, already paying heavy interests towards hand loans taken, parallelly devastating downfall of the business lead tto speculations amongst employees in terms of their salaries, day-to-day business and closure of the restaurant ??? This was one of the horrible times, we have faced in our life, wish nobody else to undergo this pain. In spite of this, we did make arrangements to run the restaurant for Sep – Dec 18 months.

After 360 Degree round of follow up, rework and approach for funds to various institutions and authorities to revamp the business, but in vain, we had to decide for closure of restaurant in Dec ‘2018.

To place as fact, neither we could sustain the business loss nor did we have additional funding options to revamp the business.

For having taken a major risk towards achieving our aspiration of becoming a successful businessmen, we have landed today in a major financial crunch. Because of a major reason i.e unplanned and delayed sewage line repair work undertaken by local municipal authorities which was totally a major uncontrollable factor, we have taken a severe beating.

Being a responsible, tax paying citizens of the country, we are not here nor we can afford to take up any suit against the concerned authorities responsible, which we know will be a futile effort.

We have our own major financial issues and debts to settle, bank loans to clear, families to be taken care of…A still haunting aspiration of becoming a successful Entrepreneurs…!!!

At this critical juncture, we only seek your best possible financial support / donations which can really help us to overcome this grave situation.

Looking forward to your positive support !!!

We are confident that we shall bounce back again one fine day as a PhoeniX!!!

Yours Sincerely.

Mahesh HD (Mob: 8310091144, Banashankari, Bengaluru)

Guruprasad HD (Mob: 8073888690, Kumaraswamy Layout, Bengaluru)

Varadaraj BS (Mob: 6364560218, Uttarahalli Main Road, Bengaluru)

EMail ID: [email protected]

Bank Account: Account number : 217801504436

Account name : Varadaraj B S

IFSC Code : ICIC0002178