Mavalli Tiffin Rooms: A legacy for Bangalore

Mavalli Tiffin Rooms, popularly known as MTR came into existence in an era where selling food as a business was still a fledgling enterprise. Those days, restaurants were called ‘hotels’ and running one was generally looked down upon. People cooked at home, and eating out was an alien concept for most. In those pre-Independence days, Indians as entrepreneurs were few and far between. MTR was an enterprise that was a product of passion and the simple desire to earn a living through that passion, the passion for cooking.

Yagnanarayana Maiya, one of the founders, gifted and innovative, played a significant role in changing the foodscape of the city in those days. Walking through a live kitchen kept obsessively clean, customers were greeted by the sight of cooks deftly churning out large quantities of food on one hand and crockery and cutlery being cleaned and sterilised with steam on the other. They would be led to the dining area where one was handed a booklet on restaurant etiquette. And at the end of a sumptuous breakfast/ tiffin, silver kettles would arrive to serve freshly roasted, ground and brewed coffee in silver cups. The entire experience was unique according to old-timers to whom a weekly or daily visit with family in tow became a ritual. For many Bangaloreans, a visit to the restaurant is not just about eating a dosa or a rava idli that MTR is known for, it’s also about the nostalgia that goes with it.

The F&B scene has experienced a complete transformation over the past couple of decades. People have become adventurous with their taste buds. Bangalore has become the destination for cuisines from all over. MTR stands despite the changing times, partly because of its legacy that’s being nurtured by the third generation of the family and partly because of strong fundamentals that makes it a trustworthy institution. I have always wondered why the brand has stood steady decade after decade. In my years of being here, I have realised that for a large chunk of customers who visit Mavalli Tiffin Rooms, the brand is akin to an inheritance, handed down from one generation of patrons to the next. In a way, it has embedded itself in the cultural psyche of the city. Despite the history and the legacy, MTR today, faces more challenges than ever before. We sometimes find ourselves caught between history and ground realities. But when we look back, we realise that MTR took hard, ground-breaking decisions in times of adversity. For example, when it found itself at the crossroads during the Emergency in the seventies, it diversified to start the instant food division.

While the IT boom of the past two decades has been a blessing for the F&B sector, it has also, paradoxically, resulted in a shortage of manpower and higher cost of labour. The bright side, however, is that regardless of the economic and market vagaries, more people are eating out now than ever before. While the future looks positive enough, the business of F & B is getting ever more complex and cumbersome. Unfortunately, it’s not just about the food anymore.

— Hemamalini Maiya is managing partner at MTR