Eggcetera

By Ankush Chibber

There are vegetarians, non-vegetarians, vegans and many other food groups in our country. And then there are the eggetarians, comprising young and adults who swear by the taste and power of eggs. They cannot resist Scotch eggs for dinner or fried eggs for breakfast. And the size of this segment seems to be growing too, especially if you go by the number of egg-specialty restaurants that have opened in the country in the recent past.

One such eatery is the wittily-named Yolkshire in Pune, which surely makes Geoffrey Boycott more glad than most. The restaurant serves the best of the basics like your omelettes and poached eggs, to the more exotic like the Hungarian omelette and egg tortillas.

Started in June this year, Yolkshire is the brainchild of Sahil Khan, Varad Deshpande, Vinod Shastri and Makarand Kulkarni. “Vinod Shastri was my mentor in college and we always discussed the opening and running of a restaurant, specifically an egg eatery,” 21-year old Khan, who handles marketing for Yolkshire with Shastri, tells us. “He is the one who actually pushed the idea and then got Varad into the loop as well.”

Deshpande is the youngest of the lot. At 19, this student of business administration is getting first hand experience of running a business in the hospitality sector. He handles the slog work of finances and setting in the standards with the restaurant’s operations.

The core of the restaurant, however, lies with Kulkarni, who brings in the domain expertise with his vast experience of working for in-flight kitchens, says Khan. It was Kulkarni who formulated the restaurant’s menu with the other three partners and later brought in a colleague of his to head Yolkshire’s kitchen staff.

Khan tells us that Yolkshire is still in what he would call its ‘beta’ phase. They are still fine-tuning the various processes behind the restaurant and would look to do so for a few more months at least.

“The fact that none of us are from the hospitality sector does work against us and there were many hard knocks and falls,” he adds. “It is one of the reasons our startup expenses went beyond Rs.20 lakh, much more than we had budgeted for.”

However, Khan is confident that the restaurant would be able to break even within the next four months. He tells us that even in the more ‘vegetarian’ of the Indian festive seasons such as Ganesh Chaturthi and Shravan, Yolkshire has seen around 60-70 footfalls a day. “And our location in Kothrud is within a demographic that is more vegetarian in the other parts of Pune.”

The founders plan to take Yolkshire into the franchising model. According to Khan, they have already received at least four expressions of interest for the same. “But we want to first fix our model and processes before we franchise,” he says. “We want to be in a situation where we can franchise with confidence and cover all bases for our franchisees.”

Indians are gradually starting to love their eggs, no pun intended. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, India currently has the fastest growth in egg consumption per capita behind China.

Data reveals that Indians consume 1.8 kg egg per capita annually. This translates to about 35 to 40 eggs annually per person. Hopefully, we should see more of Yolkshire’s ilk in the future in different parts of India.

Tags:
Makarand Kulkarni, restaurant, Sahil Khan, Varad Deshpande, Vinod Shastri, Yolkshire