What is common to a CEO, Operational Head, Assistant Professor and a Lawyer? – A cafe of their own to hang around even amidst their busy schedules. Sanjay K Menon’s love for football, Ranjana Karunakaran’s interest in meeting people, Liya Eliza Mathew’s passion for food and Sri Nath V ‘s desire to be an entrepreneur resulted in Kahawa.With its earthy ambiance and footloose attitude, it’s slowly becoming the perfect blues breaker for the brew lovers in Cochin.
The Spark
Like all great ideas, this too was born over coffee and cigarettes. We wanted a place to hang out, read, play games or just sip coffee watching the rain. Not wanting to lose the momentum and enthusiasm we decided to start the business. By God’s grace we opened the café within a few months.
Why Cafe
Food and beverages is an unavoidable factor in leisure, guess chatting makes you hungry and thirsty. Initially, we thought a wide choice of beverages and assorted snacks would be enough. Now we have started serving entrees and main courses like monakas, lasagnas and steaks, because of customer demand. Nevertheless Kahawa remains what we wanted it to be- a comfortable place to sit and chat for hours, even with one cup of coffee.
Funding
Initially we thought of getting a loan based on the SME scheme. With lot of hopes we applied for the same in a bank, but after investing money on the space, the bank didn’t sanction the loan. So we applied for a loan by pledging our properties and got some amount which was the half of what we needed. In that moment of crisis friends and family came forward to help us out.
The Name
We initially had no ideas for naming the café. We discussed many names and we ended up with Kahawa. Kahawa is Coffee in Swahili. We added a slight twist to it by making it “Kahawa-something’s brewing”. The earthy ambiance inside Kahawa is the brainchild of our friend, the interior designer, Thanu Rose. She set up the theme, the benches, the seating, the painting, the colour scheme, the old rugged look and everything. Each and everything here from switches to furniture is assembled.
Attitude
We four have different strengths. All four of us have day jobs, which take up chunk of our time, yet we make it a point that at least one of us visits the café daily. We don’t have any hierarchy here, everyone is responsible for everything. From daily purchase to monthly budgeting everyone in the team has a say. Each and every item served here is important for us, so our collective responsibility increases the quality of the organisation.
The Team
Apart from us, the four partners, the cafe is staffed by eleven others. The staff does a wonderful job in the kitchen and the service they offer is supportive of our concept of what a café should be. Actually it’s their effort that is resulting in the growth of Kahawa.
Friends, Family Support
Many friends genuinely supported and helped us in this venture. Families trusted us and are very supportive. We didn’t have to convince them because they trusted us. They are still helping us in day to day practicalities of café owning. If people around us were pessimistic it would have been very difficult to setup this project.
Challenges faced
We faced many challenges before and after beginning operations. If money, design, space, idea executing crisis and personnel selection were the challenges before the start up, attracting the crowd became a huge challenge after the start up. To make sure that every food and each coffee you serve has the best quality is a constant challenge. Like any other organisation, ensuring a smooth work flow and keeping the teams morale up are our priority.
Future
We are planning to make Kahawa a regular place for airing live telecasts of sports events. Another project we have in mind is to show classic Movies in a regular basis, with theatre effects. The first floor of the cafe is exclusively constructed for this idea.
African ambiance
The painting in Kahawa is one of the biggest graffiti in Kochi. The idea of the contemporary interior and earthy African ambiance reflects in the African art Tinga Tinga art murals etched out on our walls. The interior designer Thanu Rose’s idea of a painting inside the cafe is executed by the team KL7.