Good Morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],

You know those places you love? The ones where it’s difficult to grab a reservation when bookings open, and you wonder why they don’t just open more outlets? That is the crux of this episode: why is it so hard for restaurants to scale?

This week, Praveen and Rohin sat down with Sameer Seth, founder and CEO of Hunger Inc. Hospitality (The Bombay Canteen, O Pedro, Veronica’s, Bombay Sweet Shop) and Karan Kapur, executive director of K Hospitality Group (Copper Chimney, Bombay Brasserie, The Irish House). 

These two guests had different starting points for their businesses and surprisingly, both agreed that scaling restaurants is brutal.

Your first restaurant is pure passion. You’re there every day, you know every customer, and you tweak every dish. You are the brand.

“The moment you start going to seven, eight, ten restaurants, you really see the cracks appearing,” Karan said. “If you’ve not made that transition, you end up becoming the reason why it starts breaking.”

Sameer explained why that’s the case: “We are a unique business which has to produce and serve you at the same time, à la minute.”

In addition, there is real estate dependency (you need the right location with the right rent) and India’s regional taste differences (what works in Mumbai might not work in Bengaluru).

Then there is Papa’s, a fine-dining spot in Mumbai that seats 12 people four nights a week. It is one of the hardest reservations in the city, and most people assume this model exists for marketing.

But Sameer laughed at that idea, saying, “The reason Papa’s works is because Veronica’s serves 300 people a day and pays rent. Chef Hussain and his team can be at their creative best because the experience they’re creating is not something that can be scaled.”

Both these organisations have diversified, but not randomly.

Sameer’s group created Bombay Sweet Shop, a product-led business reimagining Indian mithai, for example, their Coffee Rasgulla Tiramisu. It is a product that can travel well and be produced consistently. They now have 18 dark stores and five retail locations, but only in Mumbai, choosing to refine the model before expanding.

Karan’s Group K Hospitality operates across four distinct verticals: restaurants, travel and airport lounges, QSR or Quick Service Restaurants, and banqueting and corporate catering (they did the IPL, the Adani wedding, and Coldplay in Ahmedabad). Each vertical runs as a separate focused business with its own team and systems.

Karan gave more context, “Back in 2008–09, India didn’t have enough opportunity to take one brand and scale it. The market was still evolving. So the way to chase growth was diversification.”

But is that the only answer? Sameer disagreed.

Which is why Karan thinks that every restaurant fits in one quadrant of the QVNA which is Quality, Value, Nostalgia, Adventure (which made Praveen declare him his favourite guest of 2026, already). He added. “If Copper Chimney tried to become The Bombay Canteen? You’d have a revolt.”

With food delivery becoming easier every year, what would it take for a restaurant now to last 100 years?

And because no conversation is complete without a mention of AI, Sameer shared how they just used it to create something unexpected. Bombay Sweet Shop launched a gingerbread man for Christmas, but co-founder Yash Bhanage (the tinkerer, as Sameer calls him) thought: what if this gingerbread man looked like a halwai? And they used AI to bring it to life.

The Gingerbread Halwai, Bombay Sweet Shop’s limited edition Christmas collection

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For restaurants, just great food or service isn’t enough. You need all of it and more, consistently, for years.

What stayed with me most is how much thought goes into things we barely notice. Like table shapes that aids in conversations, or food that can comfort someone in an airport or instil a sense of adventure for someone in an experimental mood. 

After this episode, I am curious. What is your favourite restaurant, why, and where would you place it? Quality and nostalgia? Quality and adventure? Value and nostalgia? Or value and adventure?

And if you run a restaurant, what has been the hardest part of scaling?

Write to us in the comments or email us at [email protected].

If you have not listened to the full episode yet, there is much more in it.

Until next week,
Uddantika

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