3rd parties need to understand restaurant constraints: A.D. Singh

By Puja Gupta

New Delhi, Sep 27 (IANSlife) Hundreds of restaurants from across the country, under the umbrella of the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), are challenging the deep discounting practices of online food aggregators like Zomato Gold by logging out of the programme through the #logout campaign, which has been running since August.

But as a result, they've lost business and have registered a 20 per cent decline in their bill volumes, showed a recent report by Bengaluru-based research firm RedSeer.

A.D. Singh, founder and managing director, Olive Group of Restaurants, who joined the campaign and logged out of Zomato Gold nationally, denied any difference in his business volume.

"My own take is that the way the programme has evolved, it was damaging for the restaurant industry and we needed to log out. However, I am hopeful that with constructive dialogue between us, there are enough options to go forward in a win-win manner for both the industry and aggregators," he told IANSlife.

Singh, 59, made his restaurant business debut in 1990 and now runs more than 20 restaurants across the country. And he feels the rising popularity of online food delivery platforms has impacted the dine-in market, which was already struggling with rising real estate costs and interfering governmental agencies.

"The increasing professionalism and options of online delivery coupled with other factors like the rising popularity of Netflix etc. have led more and more customers to stay at home and order in. This has definitely impacted the dine in market substantially and will continue to do so," he said.

However, he is of the view that third parties will continue to work with restaurants. "Most restaurants offer schemes to build customer loyalty and business as per their own constraints and opportunities. But for third parties to create a platform that will benefit customers in the long run, I feel the best way is to work with restaurant, understand their needs and concerns and then work out a plan to benefit all."

"Most restaurants have slots with low footfalls where they are willing to offer customers great deals to visit, but they can't do the same on their prime slots. A good scheme would work with that," he said.

"Olive has grown nationally and is today probably the best known fine-dining brand in India. Our industry provides both huge employment and plays a huge role in the happiness of everyone living here. As such, there is a lot of value for the government to work closely with us moving forward," he said.

(Puja Gupta can be contacted at puja.g@ians.in)