That Conventional Stereotype

 As you saunter through the lanes of  Chennai during the dawn of summer, an holistic panorama of street cafes are set to greet the connoisseur in you!

The  suburban lit by the scorching sun, indisputable number of traffics- are good enough reasons to testify the vigor that goes in to make  cafes successful.

Whilst a drink  in a café leaves you in the makeshift world of happiness, an exuberance of these shops is a definite sign of ominosity!

Contrary to the prior practices of serving ice-gola, popsicles, cool-drinks and the likes of many; cafes have now resorted to a newer practice of serving "Instagram famous" dishes which appeal to the likeliness of young teens who make up a majority of their customers.

Forever glued onto their mobiles, youngsters fall trap to this craze of "hyped up dishes" which  conventionally is a good marketing strategy as it allows youngsters to access the same  at a lower cost.

Quantitively, these cafes earn higher profits than restaurants. 

The success of these cafes has lead to a stereotypical vision which gives precedence to the belief that startups as cafes are much more promising.

 

Whilst this "new-normal" surges it way past the cities, it comes with a colossal drawback which questions the lifespan of such demands in the cafes.

Trends change with upsurges of modernity and ever improving ecological factors.

 If chocolate cake is a trend today, oven-less cake is a trend tomorrow!

And to thrive in such a niche isn't a matter of marketing and strategizing, rather it is a mere stake of chance that prevails the uncertainity.

The  magnitude of its continuance can be merely pre-determined by the fact that a  slice of lava cake costs around 80 rupees, a dozen such slices would make a handsome 960! 

However, the required milk powder costs around a 200, cream and chocolate would add upto some 400. An  effortless 600 or so  is all that is needed to prepare the same at home. 

This gradual preference of home baked dishes would be detrimental to the futuristic prospect of this industry, thereby waning out the conventional idea of café prosperity through startups.

image from google

-R.Mahathi

 (08.04.2024)