Srinagar witnesses spurt in fast food outlets

Srinagar, June 27

Forgetting your lunch doesn’t mean skipping it anymore as a chain of fast food outlets that has propped up in the city are ready to serve the best from Burgers to Momos. And the trend to eat out has picked up among locals.

To cater the demands of people, Srinagar city is witnessing a mushrooming of fast food outlets as the trend of fast food culture is picking up fast in Kashmir.

Manoj Dugal who runs a fast food outlet, Calcutta Kathi Rolls in Srinagar said: “We started few months back. Earlier we used to host very limited customers, usually bystanders, but now we receive a good number which is almost 70 percent increase.  Majority of customers besides tourists is either students, working class and families also visit sometimes.”

Sheikh Junaid, manager at Coffee Arabica, an upscale coffee shop, which has become very popular outing place among the youngsters in last few years told Kashmir Reader that Kashmiris  have changed their traditional food Culture and are now-a-days preferring to eat out.
He adds, “We are food lovers we open heartedly welcome new varieties of food.”

Another restaurant owner Feroz Ahmad said, “Initially there was dearth of restaurants in the city but as the demand has increased we have also increased the varieties to our list. We have enough restaurants in the city now which gives stiff competition to provide a good quality and affordable price to the customer.”

Ahmad said earlier they used to have only Kashmiri wazwan but because of high market demands to other varieties they have added several dishes to their menu. “From Pizza to Momos we deal with everything now. People want to taste some thing different and new. So we need to be prepared for that,” he said.    

Hat Trick, a unit of Chowdhary Group has nearly 20 food outlets functioning in Valley and have further expansion plans to become first fast food chain in . Hat Trick opened its first unit outside the Srinagar city in Anantnag this month.

Showkat Chawdhary, who is CEO of the Chowdhary Group said, “The trend is mostly followed by youngsters as they watch on televisions and Internet. 15 years ago there was no concept of pizza but now everyone seems so comfortable with it that it has now become the part of our dish.

Murtaza Ahmad, manager at Hat Trick Rajbagh told Kashmir Reader, “Since we have opened this restaurant here we have seen sales increasing day by day. People from all professions come and especially in the evening time we witness massive rush of visitors. At times traffic police have to come and manage traffic on the roads because of overflow of customers.”

Chowdhary said that earlier the trend used to remain confined in Srinagar only but now it is picking up in other districts as well. In Anantnag we opened the first outlet this month and it witnessed massive response.

But despite the large number of out lets in the city, Chowdhary feels that more and more people should come in this business, as the demand is ever increasing.

Even though the youngsters say that they find it trendy to go to the fast food outlets. Zarqa Shafi, a class 12 student of Kothi Bagh Higher Secondary School said, “I left my home early in the morning for the tuition and then directly go to school.  It is not possible for me to take my lunch with me. Whenever I feel hungry I go out and eat something from any outlet. More important it is very trendy and we too prefer it.”