food 24/7/365

picture this.

a bustling food court. serving anything and everything.

soups. mocktails. slushes. chuski. ice-cream. desi. southie. pasta. biryani. snacks. street food. pastries. chinese. pizzas. continental. desserts. salads.

packed with families with kids. just married types still shy of each other. cuddling couples. all male hang-out types. BPO types who stick out a mile.

here's the surprise part.

its 2 am on a saturday morning in new delhi.

and the location is "comesum", the eatery outside the hazrat nizamuddin railway station.

run by the irctc, and located in select cities .

comesum is not just a food court at railway stations. there are smaller comesum restaurants and takeaway kiosks at railway stations.

and the best is this one. call up their phone numbers. place your order and have your food delivered at your seat on your train.

whew. non-shatabdi types can finally take heart.

given the proliferation of eating out options today plus the choice of ready to cook/ ready to eat foods, home-delivery options from waiters-on-wheels to dominos to humble dhaaba / dabba fare.... i wonder.

may be there will come a day when we too turn in to a nation that almost always eats out ? much as in the west where domesticity is a pain.

i dont really think so. as long as servants are here to wait on us it seems a remote thing.
even two or three generations after todays mcfood types.

the frequency with which i take my son out to eat is once a week. minimum. the order-ins and takeaways are separate.
the ready to eat foods and chips and assorted junk is separate and not accounted for in this discussion.
but pretty much what i want to say should be clear.

we are eating out like never before.

and anything new and innovative - sushi, veda, juice bars, office lunches flaunt salads, vodka filled gol-gapppas, flambe-ed gulab jamuns, branded vada-pav...

convenience foods, ready to cook, ready to eat tom tom virtues of being natural with no preservatives to anxious homemakers. the working types simply put their guilt and doubts on the back burner and snap them up.

restaurants turn in to brands and market their speciality dishes in cans or pouches in ready to eat avtaars.
cook books routinely sell out. foodblogs have appeared

food rocks. business wise. even other wise.

so when will some one do a concept store that does any thing and everything around and with food ? a foodie version of the planet m / music world. tough. but not impossible. enough footfalls, trials and repeat visitors are guaranteed.
will messers biyani or pillai oblige ?

when will the roads of chandni chowk be turned in to an endless food street the way it is in lahore ?

microwave marketers have long since used the recipe / food route to familiarise buyers with their product and ensure that a new style of cooking is taught to desi women. post the initial flush and enthu how many have bothered to stay connected with their database of users and ensure interest and involvement levels are maintained? after all its easier to retain a customer and upsell rather than acquire a new one. scope for community building here. especially amongst home makers. samsung, LG et. al. wake up.

and then there is this. the ultimate tribute that one can pay to a brand. more so when promoting it is not allowed in any media except at point of sale. brand heritage and other sundry facts aside, this is something that constitutes the holy grail for any marketer. meakins and co must take a bow for inspiring this effort.
also a fit case for brand sustenance in the blogosphere.

stuff that case-studies would be about.

sometime in the distant future.

and now am HUNGRY...


p.s. no thanks to blogspot who swallowed this post twice before. hungry kya ?????