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Narayan Poojari of Shiv Sagar: Living the Bombay dream
Summary
The restaurateur, whose diverse portfolio includes the iconic Shiv Sagar, discusses successes and failures in creating food businesses and why affordability is always key to customersMumbai is a swarm of dining options. It has 17,123 casual restaurants, 4,417 cafés and 564 bars (going by the National Restaurant Association of India’s Food Services Report 2024). To be a successful restaurateur in an overcrowded space, the business portfolio should be diversified across all three. Restaurateur Narayan Poojari, 57, the founder of Shiv Sagar Foods & Resorts Pvt. Ltd, knows this. He runs a café, bars and casual dining restaurants, including the iconic Shiv Sagar.
I am meeting him at his restaurant-cum-bar Butterfly High at the Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai. Sitting across a table in a crisp blue shirt, his eyes narrowed in attention, he says in a deep, commanding voice, “Born in Karnataka, in Kundapura taluka, in Gujjadi, a village in Udupi district." Thereafter, he switches to colloquial Mumbai Hindi, a language he is most comfortable speaking.
Udupi is famous for its enterprising food business owners who have established multiple chains of Udupi-style eateries in Bengaluru, Chennai and Mumbai, among other cities. Their formula for success is simple: comforting south Indian food at reasonable rates with quick service. Typically vegetarian, many restaurants have, over time, added crowd-pleasers like Chinese food, chaat and ice cream.
Poojari’s business journey began in 1990 with Shiv Sagar—there are now 15 outlets spread across Mumbai, Pune and Mangaluru. In the mid-1990s, rather than sticking to a tried-and-tested formula with one brand, he expanded his business portfolio by launching different restaurant concepts, independently as well as in partnership. He opened three outlets of the popular seafood restaurant Mahesh Lunch Home by partnering with its late owner Sooru Karkera.
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About seven years ago, he launched Butterfly High, and now there are five across Mumbai. In 2019, he opened the café and bar The Bigg Small Cafe in Sakinaka, Mumbai. In 2021, he started the Asian and Mediterranean restaurant Kyma, and it has grown to two outlets in Mumbai and one in Pune.
His business basket is not limited to the food industry. In the late-1990s, he started a terracotta tiles manufacturing factory, Greenland Tiles Ltd, in Kundapura. In the last financial year, the annual turnover of his hospitality company, Shiv Sagar Foods & Resorts Pvt Ltd, crossed ₹100 crore and the tiles business earned ₹8 crore in revenue.
Till date, the most successful brand from his portfolio has been Shiv Sagar. He says, “Aap Shiv Sagar ka board laga do, log aa jayenge (You put up a Shiv Sagar board, diners will come)."
Growing up in Udupi, Poojari began working in restaurants early on. His father ran a small eatery that served dosa and idli, where Poojari assisted after school. He would see people who had migrated to Mumbai, return home wearing bell-bottoms and carrying large cassette players. The optics were enough to enthral the pre-teen as markers of success, and he decided to leave the village for the city of dreams. “I had this passion: I wanted to move away from the village," he says.
At the age of 13, he accompanied his grandmother to Mumbai; she was visiting her pregnant daughter in Santacruz. He did not return. Instead, Poojari took up a job as a canteen boy in the Fort area, and joined a night school to complete his studies. He was making around ₹40 a month, spending his free time playing football and sleeping in the canteen. He recalls being entranced by a particular restaurant in the neighbouring area of Churchgate. It was called Sapna and seemed like a fancy place with a live band. “I would stand in front of it and think to myself, one day I will build something like that." A decade later, he bought the restaurant along with his partner Bagubhai Patel and renamed it Shiv Sagar.
Patel gave direction to Poojari’s lofty ambitions. The two met through common friends in 1990, when Patel was looking for someone to oversee his small ice-cream parlour in Kemp’s Corner. By then, Poojari had switched several jobs, with a brief stint at a paint shop called Shalimar Paints. He had applied for an entry-level bank role that didn’t materialise because he was under 18. “I was constantly looking for better opportunities and switched jobs every six-seven months," he says.
He would keep 10% of his earnings and send the rest to his family every month. He toiled long hours and dropped out of junior college in the second year. By the time he was in his late teens, his father had health troubles, and as the eldest of six siblings, he took on the family’s financial responsibilities.
In 1990, when he became the manager at Patel’s ice-cream parlour—which was called Shiv Sagar—his monthly salary had increased to ₹4,000. He sensed that the shop had greater potential as it was situated in the affluent Kemp’s Corner area, and began studying the locality. In the neighbourhood of Breach Candy was another ice-cream parlour named Snowman’s that sold sandwiches and pizzas. It gave him the idea to expand the menu. He began step-by-step with juice, pav bhaji, dosa, pizza, tacos and fried rice—all vegetarian fare.
Today, the NRAI report has found that Mumbaikars prefer Italian, Chinese, south Indian, Indian snacks, north Indian and American/Mexican food while dining out. Poojari understood this formula just by observing the most popular restaurants in the city 30 years earlier. With the change in menu, Shiv Sagar grew so popular that celebrities like Sachin Tendulkar and Jackie Shroff became regulars. Within a matter of months, business doubled.
Seeing Poojari’s potential, Patel made him a partner. The following year, they opened Shiv Sagar in Churchgate. Here too, he added more to the menu as a differentiator. “It was the first vegetarian restaurant in Mumbai that served alcohol." It started to pick up, but within a few months, tragedy struck; Patel was fatally stabbed by some gangsters.
He speaks fondly of Patel and when asked if he has any business idols, Poojari says, “I listen to myself. I can’t be Ambani or Tata. But I can dream of opening more restaurants." Shiv Sagar continued to grow, opening another branch in Colaba in 1994. Poojari, as a 25-year-old, had tasted business success.
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In 1994, he got married. Business-wise, he struck a partnership deal with the founders of seafood restaurant Mahesh Lunch Home, and opened a branch in Pune. The mid-1990s were challenging. He started the terracotta tiles manufacturing business in Kundapura in partnership, but the partners cheated him, and later he turned it into a private limited company.
He bought property in Mumbai’s Vashi area and opened a multi-cuisine non-vegetarian fine-dining restaurant, Classic Waves. It was ahead of its time and the sophisticated interiors intimidated people. He had to close and sell the property.
There was a legal problem too. Another businessman, Shankar Poojari, owned a similar chain of restaurants with the same name, Shiv Sagar. They were in the suburbs, and there was a tussle over the ownership of the name. The two parties reached a settlement in court and decided they would not open within a 5km radius of one other, and to have different logos.
During that time, his health suffered. The long hours and erratic meal timings resulted in diabetes, leading him to embrace fitness. Now he spends at least two hours in the gym everyday, runs regularly and goes on frequent treks. He recently trekked to Everest Base Camp.
His two daughters, Nikita and Ankita, both in their 20s, have joined the business. Nikita, who looks after operations and administration, joined in 2017 after her postgraduation in instrumentation engineering. The younger daughter, Ankita, who is in charge of marketing, has an MBA degree in marketing and strategy.
In the last four-five years, they have opened at least two restaurants every year, starting with Butterfly High. There was another concept that didn’t take off as expected. Poojari loves fish and launched a premium seafood restaurant Fish N Bait in Pune’s Viman Nagar and at Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) in 2017. Fish N Bait shut shop within two years, and he transformed it to the affordable bar and restaurant, Butterfly High.
While the Pune one closed, Mumbai grew. BKC is a corporate hub, and he noticed it needed an affordable bar-cum-restaurant for people to unwind. His instinct was right, and Butterfly High started to attract office goers. The other four outlets are located in corporate hubs in Lower Parel, Andheri, Vikhroli and Thane.
“It’s not possible to get 100% result from every business," he notes sanguinely. He spent a considerable amount building Fish N Bait, about ₹4-5 crore on each branch, and it didn’t work. Even covid, which rattled the restaurant industry, didn’t leave him in despair. He had Shiv Sagar to fall back on. All his restaurants remained closed, but the delivery business of Shiv Sagar sustained them.
The biggest challenge in the restaurant industry, he says, is creating a brand. But, once it catches on and the restaurant delivers consistently, it’s a success. This is the reason behind Shiv Sagar’s enduring success. After multiple failures in the premium dining space, he has found a formula—whether it’s a bar or a café, affordability is crucial.
In the current financial year, more openings are on the books. Without revealing much, he names just one, The Bigg Small Cafe, an all-day café and bar which will open in Lower Parel soon.
“I have gone from zero to hero. Let’s see how far destiny takes me," he says. It’s a sentiment a true Mumbaikar would understand.
Quick three
Comfort food: Fish curry and rice, Mangalore style
Hobbies: Gymming
An actor who could portray him in a movie: Akshay Kumar, because he worked as a chef.
