Your cook ditched you, the restaurants are shut and so are all the online food delivery portals. While larger restaurant establishments and many online food portals lose on the revenues, very few of them like Thulp, Smally’s, Delicacy and a handful of others were servicing the nearby areas, thanks to the home deliveries.
The city that went gaga over the emerging online food delivery startup marketplace with many entrepreneurs taking the plunge shunning their conventional jobs to enter this space, are also helpless and cannot function, due to the ongoing bandh. It’s only apt to call Bengaluru Bandhgaluru, what with the fourth bandh in the past few days, leaving all and sundry high and dry. Is there any peaceful solution for the days ahead?
Nikhil Hegde of Smally’s states, “The Cauvery water issue is a nationwide concern and every citizen has their right to support it, although in a dignified manner. The result to this bandh has not just affected small scale business owners, but businesses and owners that depend on their daily bread through the same.Our politicians really need to do more for the state and ensure that their people are happy and general businesses don't have to be affected when rents and overheads are sky rocketing and we have to deal with these on certain days like this one. Looking at the way things are it’s more feasible to run an all delivery model. There's certainly more business and value added to this stream.”
Only in small pockets, some restaurants were plying delivering in the vicinity of a couple of kilometers, but overall the city saw a complete standstill. Catering to nearby hungry homes was Eric Lepcha of Delicacy, a food delivery and outlet, who says, “We supplied in neighbouring areas, but within the distance of two kms only. We wanted to deliver everywhere, as we were getting calls from everywhere, but we had to say no due to the fear that was looming large in the city.”
A frazzled foodie, Simran G who was stuck at home without any food expresses her angst, “All the online food and pizza delivery services were not functioning. We’re lucky that a nearby eatery was open where we ordered from.”
Subash Baliga, Zzungry states, “We had to put our services on hold. We would like to service the growing demand, but were unable to. We also faced losses like most restaurant owners. The commute for the delivery boys was a challenge. No business can survive in this environment and Bengaluru has to get back on its leg.”
Adds Rashmi Daga, Fresh Menu, “We had to shut down our services as Cauvery is a sensitive issue. The demand and clicks on our website were big, but we could not service, as we were told to stay indoors.”
