Tête-À-Tea With Sachin Pabreja: A Revealing Discussion With Call Chotu Founders Sumit And Chiquita Gulati On Brand Growth, Innovation, And More

Started as a delivery brand focused on providing quality food at an affordable price, Call Chotu has now become a crowd favourite for those seeking a cosy diner experience with a mix of Indian and global flavours. With a menu featuring street food delights like Vada Pav alongside international offerings, this place is definitely worth the hype.

In this candid chat with the eatery's founders, Sumit Gulati and Chiquita Gulati, we delve into their brand's journey, the challenges they’ve faced, and their future growth plans. Let’s take a quick look!

1. Brand Evolution: How did Call Chotu transform from a cloud kitchen to an all-day diner, and what inspired this transition?

Ans: When we launched the delivery service in 2019, we saw a major gap in the market for good quality food at reasonable everyday price points. Many people in our city may not be able to afford a full-time cook, and even those who can, may not find it cost or time-effective to cook a single portion of any dish at home. So the idea was to start a brand that caters to this need. Chotu or your personal food genie, cooks whatever you want, anytime you want at affordable-for-most price points - Jo Chaho Jab Chaho.

On the heels of the popularity of our delivery service, we realised the potential for bringing such a concept to an offline space, and the Call Chotu - All Day Diner & Bar was born. We took business and customer insights on the most frequently ordered dishes, and perfected our menu over the first two years of operations of the delivery business, these insights along with the data gathered from the market based on highly searched cuisines, dishes and combinations allowed us to conceptualise and custom create a menu for the Diner.

We took inspiration from the closest relatable concept to this in an offline space, that is the quintessential Diners, serving local staples across America, open all day for all meal periods at affordable pricing. While we have seen many American diners pop up, they do not serve the local staples of our city and the idea of an Indian Diner was so far limited to the likes of traditional concepts like trucker stops, Punjabi dhabas or sweet shop chains.

We set out to break this perception and create an All Day Indian Diner concept that reflects the modern vibe, cosiness & ambience of an international diner appealing to today’s urban Indian consumer - serving a menu with comfort food & everyday food that Indians like, at prices that will not burn a hole in your pocket.

2. Signature Dishes: Could you highlight three must-try dishes that represent the essence of Chotu’s culinary philosophy?

Ans: Chotu’s Vada Pav is a must-try for all vegetarians, incorporating the most authentic flavours straight from the streets of Mumbai, and fresh baked ladi pav, the dish is both nostalgic and memorable. No one can eat just one, literally!

Galouti Pav is our very own innovation, a modern twist on an Awadhi favourite. Retaining the authentic flavours of the Galouti, paired with our signature freshly baked ladi pav and house special sauces, the Galouti Pav is any non-vegetarian’s ultimate indulgence.

The Biscoff Tres Leches is the epitome of indulgence, a decadent dessert that luxuriates in its richness amped up with the sweet caramelly, cinnamon spiciness of Lotus Biscoff. Imagine layers of light, airy sponge cake soaking up a trio of creamy milk flavoured with the richness of the Biscoff, creating a moist, melt-in-your-mouth experience with every bite. Topped with our secret sweet milk spread, and Biscoff crumble, the dessert is a harmonious balance of flavours. A definite crowd favourite!

3. Culinary Heritage: How has your family’s restaurant background at Gulati Restaurant influenced Chotu’s menu and concept?

Ans: Having seen the Gulati’s Restaurant journey unfold over the last 4 decades, has definitely inspired us to create a brand with a legacy that transcends generations and decades. We knew when we started Call Chotu that the vision was for it to become larger than life like Gulati’s is.

Our menu is distinctive from the Gulati’s experience, however, we drew inspiration from the idea that we wanted a few identifier signature dishes that are synonymous with Call Chotu, somewhat like how Butter Chicken is for Gulati’s. For us, the culinary objective has always been on providing patrons with the largest and most diverse gastronomic experience possible, with a focus on celebrating comfort food, and cuisines that Indians have enjoyed for generations. Of course with a little innovation thrown in the mix.

4. Future Expansion Plans: What are your strategic plans for Call Chotu in the next two years - more offline spaces, menu innovations, or geographical expansion?

Ans: With Saket operational for almost a year now, and Chandigarh for over five months, we are now gearing up to launch our next Diner in Kailash Colony, and a Canteen style model in Rajouri Garden. The idea is to bring the Call Chotu experience to as many geographies within Delhi NCR as we can, and slowly expand to other cities.

Our menu is constantly evolving, and we are always adding dishes that we believe will bring our guests a sense of comfort & wholesomeness.

5. Guest Delight Strategy: How do you ensure consistent quality and customer satisfaction across delivery and dine-in experiences?

Ans: Customer delight & retention is a no-brainer, if one builds a solid product and value proposition. At Call Chotu - All Day Diner & Bar, we ensure that product is excellent, since we have a large variety on our menu with a wide range of cuisine options for customers to choose from, coupled with a pricing strategy that allows the widest range of clientele by affordability from a diverse range of backgrounds and needs. From a meal for a single diner to a couple to a family to corporate lunches or dinners, our menu and space have something for everyone, at prices that are unbeatable in the entire city for this kind of experience.

Our focus is on providing good dining experience that is enabled by swift table service, fine dining-grade tableware and a vibe that instantly makes a customer feel comfortable, which stems from our aim to create the perfect product-pricing match.

We knew we had to only focus on bringing a customer into the Diner once, and the repeat visit would be taken care of by our offerings and a sticky loyalty program that offers up to 20% cashback on every bill amount.

Retention has not really been a challenge for the brand owing to the fact that customers love the menu, the vibe, the service, the location and the affordable price point. The offering coupled with our loyalty program has resulted in an extremely high repeat rate with our Top 15 customers having visited us an average of 3 to 5 times a month.

6. Menu Philosophy: How do you balance traditional Indian flavours with global comfort food in your menu design?

Ans: Chef Chiquita designed a menu that truly beholds our ethos of something for everyone on the table - (Jo Chaho Jab Chaho, our tagline).

We designed our menu to include a vast range of comfort food, ‘from Khichdi to Khao Suey’:

  - Dedicated Pav section with popular dishes such as Vada Pav, our signature Galouti Pav in savoury options, and some sweet pav options developed in-house

  - Popular street foods like Pav Bhaji, Chholey Kulche, Momos, Bread Pakodas, chaats etc

  - Everyday comfort food like Khichdi, Dal Tadka, Rajma Chawal, Kadhi Chawal etc

  - Restaurant style Indian Food like Butter Chicken, Mutton Curry, Kebabs, Naans etc

  - Van Wala Chinese food such as Chowmein, Manchurian, Chilli Paneer / Chicken

   - Elevated Restaurant Wala Asian including customisable Stir Frys, Khao Suey, Thai Curries, etc

   - Trending dishes popular with the city’s youth such as chuskis, tacos, naan pizzas, loaded fries etc

Essentially, our menu is a healthy mix of food that Indians love to eat, whether that is butter chicken and naan or Chowmein and Manchurian, we ensure that our menu has something for everyone.

7. Innovation Approach: What’s your process for creating unique dishes like naan pizzas or Mummy ki Macaroni?

Ans: Innovation has been at the core of our brand, and one of our most highly upheld value propositions. For Chef Chiquita, innovation is a balance of flavours and textures, and this is visible in dishes such as our Galouti Pav, Kakori Sheermal Taco, Naan-Pizzas and dishes such as Butter Chicken Pasta.

The idea has been to blend elements of global dishes, with Indian flavour profiles and concepts. Take tacos for instance, a global favourite, that is so adaptable to Indian flavours. We make our Tacos with naans and stuffed with popular starters such as Chicken Tikka & Paneer Tikka Masala. The Kakori Sheermal Taco is a balance of the spicy flavours of the kakori kebab with the mildly sweet Sheermal roti making it an unparalleled gastronomic experience.

8. Technology Integration: How has your cloud kitchen background influenced your restaurant’s operational approach?

Ans: The entire cloud kitchen end of our business is tech-enabled. Menu and Orders are fully integrated between ordering platforms and our POS. Each of our Menu items is mapped with a recipe on POS that tracks Ideal vs Actual consumption of materials. We maintain material management dually on POS & advanced Pivots to track ordering, receiving, issuance and audits for food and packaging materials.

Owing to a robust delivery presence, we had the advantage of gathering deep market insights with regard to what customers were looking at through search data and insights along with the prices that customers were comfortable shelling out for high-quality food. With these insights, we developed a product that fulfilled market demand for the kind of food, pricing and experience people wished for from dining out.

These insights also helped us understand what customers want, what sells and so maintaining a lean, efficient and tightly run supply chain, that minimizes food wastage and ensures that superior quality of produce and product is delivered to every outlet in a timely manner.

Our cloud kitchens have been set up following HACCP norms and use only the best quality equipment and ingredients to ensure quality standards are maintained across all menu items, something that we brought to the Diner kitchen as well. This includes exclusively using food-grade stainless steel equipment and maintaining the highest standards of hygiene.

Other than Chiquita Gulati who is a chef herself, we have an experienced team of chefs with the Top 10 chefs having a combined culinary experience of over 200 years.

Our brand and operations are completely based on fresh food. Key marinations & gravies are prepared at our central kitchen in Vasant Kunj and transported to the diner every morning, while fresh pavs & buns are baked every 2 hours at the Diner itself since it features a live bakery equipped, with the latest equipment for baking, and quick preparations such as fries, pasta etc... Smaller batch items are cooked at the diner itself to ensure freshness and quality. We only buy branded sealed-pack groceries.

All these learnings have resulted in a Diner that runs smoothly with low wastage and high customer satisfaction.