Kolkata: The cafe business is generally seen to be dominated by men, but women entrepreneurs in Kolkata, West Bengal have proven themselves in this space and have opened new age ‘theme’ based cafes. These entrepreneurs include actress-turned-entrepreneur Swaralipi Chatterjee, who runs the popular cafe ‘Aber Meeting’ at Jodhpur Park in Kolkata. This is the first cafe to be based on the ‘theme’ of filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s popular detective character ‘Feluda’.
Chatterjee, who was a popular face of Bengali serials till 2014, said, “We opened this cafe in Rabindra Sarobar area in 2010, a few years after our initial startup cafe did not succeed due to flawed planning, but I got divorced from my husband. After leaving, I now have to operate it alone.” Chatterjee said that she and her ex-husband started the cafe out of their passion for providing ‘adda’, delicious food and good ambiance for the customers.
She said that her ex-husband cooks delicious food and was not even getting “meaningful roles” on television, which is why they both decided to start this business. Chatterjee, who is planning to restart her acting career this year, said that women have to prove themselves at every step and determination is very important to do so. He has opened another cafe in the Narendrapur area outside the southern part of the city.
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Similarly, Amrita Ani, owner of ‘Pancham Er Dade’, another popular cafe based in ‘Hindustan Park’ on the theme of songs by composer RD Burman, said that her dream was to open a cafe themed on the music of 1970s and 80s, Which was completed in August 2019. Annie said she had to sell all her jewelry to get her cafe back up again after the lockdown. “I couldn’t see it sinking under any circumstances,” she said. Arunima Dhawan, owner of ‘Hola’, a popular cafe in Vivekananda Park, said that she is very fond of delicious cuisine and she got full support from her husband in starting this business.
“It is a four-year-old journey and we are still learning. When we started this business, we did not know much about cuisines and beverages.” Meanwhile, Rajreeta Sen, co-owner of tea cafe ‘Teutonic’, said that entrepreneurship has traditionally been male dominated, but things have started to change now. (agency)