A Plate of Nostalgia

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The contribution of nostalgia in food business – particularly restaurants – is common the world over and has been a subject of many studies. Begum Kizildemir of Istanbul Bilgi University presented “Exploring The Role of Nostalgia in The Restaurant Experience and It’s Reflections on Return Patronage” in 2016. The thesis looks at consumer behaviors, the nostalgic emotion, restaurant atmospherics like food, location and service in analysing how this plays a big role. In another paper “The Relative Importance of Food, Atmosphere, and Fairness of Wait: The Case of a Full-service Restaurant” written by Sulek and Hensley in 2004, food was considered as only one of the reasons for customer loyalty and atmosphere was also an equally important factor. The food’s connection with culture, traditions are also critical to its popularity.

When one thinks of any of the restaurants listed above, it is immediately obvious how nostalgia plays a key role in their continuing fame. If the dishes served in these restaurants were part of a menu in a different location and atmosphere, they would probably have very little chance of success. Yes, each restaurant has a signature dish that does excite the taste buds. But every one of them has also nurtured the connection with the past. When you walk in to any of these places, the physical location is as important as the food.

All these restaurants typically have a similar look and feel with the old style cash counter, photographs of founder(s), Gandhi, Nehru and other leaders on the wall.  

Vidyarthi Bhavan is located in a building that is straight out of the early 1930s with clay tiled roof, wooden windows, tiled floor and whirling fans. Until recently, a customer would even get a square piece of an old newspaper to wipe greasy hands after eating the famed masala dosé. In the earlier years before the expansion, when the place was crowded, one could even sit in the kitchen and eat watching the dosé being flipped on the tava (griddle) and staff buzzing around preparing the ordered items!

Even after a recent expansion and ‘modernization’, Brahmin’s Coffee Bar has retained the sign board from 1965. The painted sign board instantly reminds you that you are about to experience fame that has lasted over five decades. Along with the famous soft idli, crisp  vadé and spicy, watery chutney, the sign board evokes a certain era that everyone longs for.

Hotel Dwarka was originally started in 1972 on Bull Temple Road. It was in a building that was probably built a few decades earlier. There was a well known (and often ignored) sign that said “ಮೂರನೇ ಬಾರಿ ಚಟ್ನಿ ಕೊಡಲಾಗುವುದಿಲ್ಲ” (“We will not serve you chutney for the third time”) in Kannada. This was used as a deterrent to customers who would ask for repeated servings of chutney. Since the relocation to a newer building about a kilometer away in 2006, there are many who conclude that “It does not feel and taste the same anymore”. Maybe the thread of connection with the past has been severed with the change in atmosphere.

Noted journalist Gauri Lankesh who had her office minutes away from these restaurants once remarked that taking home a dish from Vidyarthi Bhavan is just not the same as eating it there. The atmosphere heightened the expectations and the taste of the dish.

A majority of the repeat customers in these restaurants are from families whose previous generations had patronized them. The tradition is carried forward; at least for the near future. As Begum Kizildemir wrote in her research, “These types of food make us who we are and they pass down to generations; carrying our memories.”