Eat, pay, give in a MINUTE

True to its tagline, The Minute Bistro Café places time above all. Barely two months since its inception; Enayet Ansari and Nikhil Kamath, the owners of Bengaluru’s first pay per minute café, are back with an interesting agenda — a new charity-driven campaign called ‘Eat to Feed, Pay for Time’. We dig deeper…

Housed on the 2nd main road of Kasturi Nagar, this quaint rooftop café follows a quirky rule: you pay Rs 5 for every minute spent here, while the food is on the house. But the latest buzz is the charity driven initiative  that entails taking two per cent of the profit every two weeks; and donating it to the nearest orphanage or a blind school, or to buy books and stationery for the underprivileged kids.

Elucidating on the newly launched ‘The ‘Eat to Feed, Pay for Time’ campaign, Enayet states, “A lot of young adults and college goers are open to helping the poor and doing their bit. But strangely enough, not many actually make plans to head to an old-age home or an orphanage as regularly as they visit a café. So we thought, why not give them the opportunity to unwind and yet give back to the society while they’re on it?” he maintains.

While the birth of Minute Bistro can be accredited to cafes in Russia and London that run along similar concepts; Enayet admits that the concept was quite a gamble in the city. “We were skeptical when we started out. But when large numbers of youngsters flocking in, it was a pleasant surprise. The metropolitan vibe to the city makes it easier for off beat ventures to thrive,” he remarks. On an average, people spend about 20-45 minutes at the café.  The restaurant sees about 60-70 patrons on weekdays, while the numbers scale up to 100 on weekends.

Akanksha Singh, a 22-year-old IT professional  feels the set-up is perfect for the cities. “The fact that you need to pay for your time, makes it less crowded. And you don’t see people occupying the place for hours together, so there’s more privacy,” she opines.

Syed Aamar, a final-year student from Jain University too is in the favour of the concept,  “It’s a brilliant way to keep a tab on your time and not recklessly while it away,” he adds.