The romance of fast food

In the 1960s, when dating was socially taboo, a small cafe in Connaught Place quietly played host to numerous dates, gradually becoming a haven for marriages made in heaven.

Lalit Nirula, now a mentor of the legendary Nirula's chain of restaurants, fondly remembers the days when each individually-lit table at a Nirula's restaurant would render the perfect romantic ambience. Lala Charat Ram's marriage reception was held in the Nirula's restaurant and Raj Kapoor once judged a beauty contest there.

The foundation for the history of Nirula's was laid in 1934 with Hotel India, a 12-room hotel which later shut shop. What followed was a cafe, speciality restaurants like La Boheme, Gufa and Chinese Room.

In 1978, the Nirula family ventured into fast food with its ice-cream parlour, snack bar, pastry shop and salad bar. Interestingly, the family had a lot to learn within the first few years... not about running a business, but about Indian tendencies.

"People would walk away with our long spoons from the snack bar and since we had self-service, some would even keep rasgullas in paper cups and leave without paying," laughs Nirula. And it wasn't until a few Sikhs complained about getting their beard stained with ice-cream from the ice-cream cones that the family introduced the concept of serving soft ice-cream in cups.

In fact, a regular at the Chinese Room, Dr Parvinder Singh's vegetarianism encouraged the Nirulas to develop Chinese cuisine sans eggs, conjuring dishes like cabbage cream and spinach balls.

Today, 73 years hence, after the family sold their company to Malaysia-based Navis Capital Partners and family member Samir Kuckreja in 2006, the Nirula's name is set to step out of north India and grow into 200 outlets all over the country with an investment of Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion).

But Samir Kuckreja, Nirula's CEO and marketing director, who at 14 years of age did his summer training with Nirula's as a dishwasher, still remembers the time when he was handed the job of peeling onions all day. "The smell stayed on me for the next two days," he grins.

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