RIYAAZ AMLANI, President, NRAI and CEO, Impresario Entertainment & Hospitality says, “Food services scene has changed. F&B from 5 stars has shifted to F&B out of 5 stars to places like Indigo, Olive and since then there is no looking back”. Earlier the best talent only wanted to work in 5 star, but with the rise of quality of restaurants it became cooler to work in standalone restaurant. He adds that standalones today have so much to deal with day to day problems and that is why they more resilient. He concludes by saying that there is greater flexibility in standalones in terms of design and creativity and I feel hospitality professionals have more opportunities here.” 

He was speaking via skype, at the NRAI Panel at the BW Hotelier F&B Conclave and Expo 2016 titled: How to Script Restaurant Success Stories: What Standalones Can Teach Five-Star Hotels.The panel was sponsored by Dineout.co.in, whose co-founder Sahil Jain also gave a fascinating presentation to the gathering before the session started.

Sumit Goyal, Founder Gastronomica says, “It’s a different picture all together. Running a restaurant has a different volume and comes with different challenges. As a standalone, we need to get a customer in. Every time we need to bring in innovation in our offerings so that fatigue doesn’t come in. It’s like doing the same things in a different way every day.”

AD Singh, Managing Director, Olive Bar & Kitchen says, “When 5 star hotels were on laurels, they were very inflexible and not looking at how customers are changing. I feel in India there is still a lot of inflexibility.” He adds that a standalone might not work very well in a hotel as there it is not accessible directly. However, a separate entry might help. So the idea of having a standalone in a hotel is good but it is hard to retrofit it. Hotels need to plan and execute that flexibility to be able to do it. 

Rahul Khanna, Joint CEO, Azure Hospitality says, “We have grown up eating in hotels. Today when I have people visiting from outside and I get to know that there is a standalone in a hotel, I will be keen about it”. He adds that we can surely look at merging the two and this is what is happening in abroad as well.

Sharad Sachdeva , CEO, Lite Bite Foods says, “People want good food with innovation and affordability. They don’t want a stiff and formal dining experience any more”. They want to have fun at a casual place. We travel abroad and recognize certain concepts and cuisines. The professionals of the industry are helping us in creating those concepts at various food destinations. Today concept based offering is there and it is more of an experience rather than just food.

Nitin Nagrale, Director of Materials, Radisson Blu Plaza, Mumbai says, “Successful model will be replicated everywhere and living up to the expectation of people is important. Earlier only a 5 star hotel was a competition to another 5 star hotel, but now we also have standalones’ as a big competition and this competition is very good for a customer. 5 star hotels learn a lot from standalones”. 

Matt Radaj, General Manager, Niche Hospitality says, “In India I feel standalones’ have a lot of freedom and are dynamic in nature. Personally, I would prefer drinking at a standalone as they are more free and dynamic”.

Sahil Jain, Co-Founder, Dineout.co.in says, “For us as a platform, initially it took time to convince 5 star hotels to tie-up with us as they were very restricted in their thought process. But, today I see a change and more and more five stars are coming ahead to use new technologies and trends to make the best out of it. Technology, social media, digital marketing, etc. was somehow missing in 5 stars hotel earlier.