The Moving Cart – Not just a Restaurant

There are two things that one needs to experience while staying in or visiting Mumbai, the first are the places and the second is the food. The recently launched mobile restaurant, The Moving cart gives you the best of both the things. We had seen this awesome looking bus moving around in the town area of Mumbai and it was an instant attention grabber. The thing that was interesting about this bus was that it moved at a snail’s pace of around 10 km/hr and had a fully functional restaurant. Yes, it was a double decker bus converted into a moving restaurant. The bus is divided in two sections, the lower section is the air conditioned portion and the upper section is kept open and has live music. This was a concept that the company started in Chennai and later opened the same service in Mumbai.

Our samurai’s at UrbanRestro managed to get in touch with the Co-founder of this amazing place, Mr. John Dias who also agreed to give us an interview! Below are the excerpts from the interview that we had with Mr. John Dias.

UR:  Who was the brain behind this idea? How did the others contribute to it?

JD: This was started by Ami Shah in Chennai and she is the Promoter and Founder. Her husband Hardik Shah is co-founded of this company. Hardik Shah conceptually took the whole thing ahead. Hardik and I knew each other from a very long time, so we decided to launch it together in Mumbai

UR: As a new concept which has a niche market, did you have lot of troubles to establish yourselves?

JD: We had to go through major hurdles to obtain the licences.  First, we began with the legal agenda because we had to re-register here. Then we had to arrange for the various licences: food and drugs licence, health licence, etc. because it’s a restaurant and a bus and the licences were needed for both

UR: As a co-founder, what type of experience do you want your customers to have?

JD: Our target audience are upper middle class and high end customers, so when the customer is paying Rs.1200 per person for vegetarian and Rs.1400 per person for non-vegetarian, I want my customers to have the best and the most unique feeling while they dine on the move. We have selected this route as we want our clients to enjoy “Queen’s Necklace” which is Mumbai’s best view and feel the amazing atmosphere while they dine with us as after 8’o clock the traffic moves away from South Bombay towards the suburbs and the area is relatively traffic free. The bus moves 10 KMPH and is not disturbed by any traffic.

UR: If you had to choose another area to start ‘The Moving Cart’ in Mumbai, what area would that be?

JD: We have been planning another bus, in Bandra. It’ll start from Bandra Reclamation, cover the sea link, then Hajji Ali and back. It will be launched soon in the 2^nd week of June.

UR: Is there any advice you would like to give to the restaurant owners in the city who are introducing a new dining concept?

JD: We have to think out-of-the-box and think of innovative ideas. We have to build relationship, walk hand in hand and admire.

UR: What type of cuisine do you want to serve your customers?

JD: Currently, we are serving Indian and Continental cuisine in vegetarian and non-vegetarian. We are planning to change the cuisine, which will be a unique cuisine that the customer will enjoy.

UR:  Is there any main problem you have because of the moving feature of the restaurant as it is atop a bus?

JD: We started initially in Chennai and with our experience we had implemented the best practice. We use an anti-skid mat which prevents all kinds of spillage served on the table on-board even if the bus turns are 360 degree. We have outsourced our Kitchen as due to security and safety reason we cannot have a live kitchen on a moving bus. Here we use bain-marie, hot case and micro wave to serve the food hot and to maintain its taste and have taken enough measures to ensure that hot and tasty food is served to clients on their table.

UR: How did you acquire the bus?

JD: The bus is a customised bus made in Chennai. The parts are from many multinational companies. To make the bus it took around 5-6 months and we brought it to Mumbai thinking that the legalities etc. will be done within 3 weeks or so. But the whole process took around 7 months.

UR: Are there any events you organise? What is the response to this new concept?

JD: We organise birthday parties, kitty parties and all sorts of celebrations. We can drive the bus around Mumbai and hence these parties atop a moving bus really provide for a different experience. The response is pretty good and we see an 80% occupancy on most days.