GOOD FOOD SERVED QUIETLY – THE MIME RESTAURANTS

 Location – Powai | Rajasekhar Reddy & Shishir Gorle

 Mirchi & Mime (fine dining restaurant) – 3rd rank in that area
 Madeira & Mime (gastropub) – 4th rank in that area
 Good food & best of the customer experience
 Attributes – strong customer loyalty | Ambience | Good food | décor | service – Quality –
friendliness and courtesy
 Positive vibes | Cheerful atmosphere |
 Call signs – All the servers (waitstaff) interacting with the customers were Speech & Hearing
Impaired (SHI) and they communicate through sign language.
 Costa Coffee and CCD are operating with one or two servers who are SHI, but this was the first
time a restaurant in India operating completely by SHI servers.
 SHI employees are not part of marketing gimmick for the management, but their draw is
restaurant and its attributes, not the SHI servers.
 Their goal is to open multiple restaurants and hire 500 SHI employees – a truly inclusive
workplace for them.

HOW IT BEGAN

 July’2014 – Reddy watched a video on FB – SIGNS – restaurant in Toronto – Canada. All servers
were SHI and customers place their orders by using Sign language.
 2011 Census – Population – 1.21 billion (51.47% - Male | 48.53% – Female).
 26.8 million people had disabilities – out of this 19% were SHI (more males)
 Out of 26.8 million – 18.96 million were above 19 years age and 17.07 million categorized as
non-workers.
 Prateek prepared a business plan to setup 20 food outlets in 5 years and then Srikanth also looped
into this venture, as both are in hospitality and service industry experience.
 Planned to raise 20 million including their contribution and they also approached their friends
who can invest INR 2 million each.
 2014 – location finalized for their first restaurant, but investors (friends) didn’t turnup.
 Oct’2014 – Reddy and Gorle founded M/S Squaremeal Foods Private Limited (SFPL) to take the
venture forward.
 1st restaurant inaugurated in May’2015 – first round of funding for the full amount of INR 20
million on a valuation of INR 200 million.
 SFPL had Srikanth & Prateek as founders and Reddy & Gorle as mentors and investors.
INITIAL DAYS
 Founders approached Rochiram Thadani High School – considered to be the best place for
training and education for SHI students. – 25 students to recruit.
 Encountered with lot of apprehensions and hurdles from students’ school and their parents as well
suspecting with the recruitment process and if any hidden agenda for exploitation.
 Mirchi & Mime arranged pickup and drop and hostel kind of facility for SHI
 Although SHI people formed as inseparable part of founder’s vision, while pitching for
investment, only commercial aspects are highlighted, and the SHI aspect brought in later as an
important feature.
 DRF customized a two-month vocational training program for the SHI employees at SFPL –
hospitality & grooming. How to greet people, how to interact with customers etc.
 Food trails started in Apr’2015, despite training program, SHI servers couldn’t deliver what they
are supposed to – delayed launch and ALL HANDS-ON DECK.
 For a brief period, management considered hiring serving staff who could speak and hear – SHI
servers picked up the skills.
 When SHI servers saw how the tasks being performed visually, they figured out what do and were
up and running within 7 days.
 After classroom sessions, they introduced – PIGGYBACK training wherein each recruit would
follow a trained server on the job for a few days.
 Productivity and level of comfort of the SHI employees increased when they worked in SOCIAL
ECOSYSTEM of their own.
 Leaving them alone or leaving only one or two SHI persons working amongst NON-SHI
individuals was not sustainable for long.
 SHI persons felt ISOLATED and DIFFERENT if they were working in a team that had
predominantly NON-SHI individuals. Hence management made large groups of SHI’s working
together. (Implemented at Mirchi & Mime)
 REVERSE INCLUSION – SHI people formed the MAINSTAY in the restaurants and NON-
SHI / NORMAL persons had to MODIFY their WORK & COMMUNICATION methods to
match those of the persons with speech and hearing impairment. The most visible of these
required changes was the use of SIGN LANGUAGE.

USING SIGN LANGUAGE

 Every SHI server tagged with a specific sign. Customers can use the same sign to call the specific
server. NON-SHI person will explain in audible mode.
 Menu is the second one to introduce with sign language. Different categories of food and each
food item within has been assigned with different symbols, hence customers can show the dish or
show that hand symbols of their food choice.

ESPOS: Annual bonuses credited as ESOP’s, which can be encashed at the end of 3 rd year.

INTERFACING WITH CUSTOMER:

 Customers were willing to ignore the poor service from SHI servers, thinking why make it
difficult for SHI, but managers ensured to customers that they can complain if any considering as
normal situations and persons.
 Feedback was received through two different channels – informal interaction with customers at
the time of billing and a formal feedback form.
 However, except in such cases, there was no structured mechanism to share the feedback from
customers at a particular table with the specific SHI server who had been assigned to that table.

COMMUNICATING PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK

Focus on how to do it right instead of what went wrong – basic tenet of a good feedback process.

ANALYSING WORK PERFORMANCE

After training program, management realized, job performance of SHI servers better than non-
SHI employees.
SFPL instituted a system of giving 3 official warnings to an irregular employee before taking
disciplinary action.

CREATING AN INCLUSIVE WORK CULTURE

 In a matter of 6 to 9 months restaurant began functioning seamlessly. Here NORAML people are
minority, majority of employees are SHI, we must adjust to their culture, not the other way round.
A true diversity and inclusion (D&I).

A BUYOUT OFFER and its FALLOUT

 2018 – SFPL received an offer of INR 300 million for a total buyout with actual valuation of INR
270 million as per market.
 Gorle & Reddy together had a share of 75% in the ownership.
 Srikanth & Pratik together had a share of 15% and shares from funds raised was 10%
Reddy & Gorle denied the offer since they had set out to open 20 restaurants and employ 500 SHI
people. Srikanth & Pratik were disappointed as they might have received INR 24 million in cash.

EXPANSION & CHALLENGES

 SFPL second outlet, bar & café – Madeira & Mime – operational since October’2016
 Mirchi & Mime opens only at mealtimes, but Madeira & Mime was open all days.
 SFPL decided to identify tier-2 cities for their further expansion.
 2nd Mirchi & Mime restaurant opened in the city of Indore on 12 th Apr’2019
 Plan to open 20 outlets was still in the works, (funds)
 Their outlets were giving them a return of around 7% EBITA, this was lower than 12% those
restaurants with similar food and ambience were earning, but better than many specialty
restaurants whose returns could be lower at around 5%.
 Their extra costs could be attributed to three main reasons:
 Good wages & ESOPS
 Larger number of servers as employees in proportion to number of tables
 Providing facilities such as transport & accommodation to its servers.
 However, they wondered about the new challenges that they would encounter while trying to
replicate such an INCLUSIVE MODEL on a large scale.