Recipe for big trouble: Battling restaurateurs

His restobar Soda was a frequent venue for page 3 and he had been on an expansion spree when everything started coming apart for Vikram Ram. The hotelier who was recently arrested by the police for allegedly cheating four investors who undertook his franchisee, has now moved a writ in the high court alleging a concerted effort to drive him out of business masterminded by a rival.

Now we hear that well known restaurateur Suhas Awchat and his son Sudeep have also been embroiled in this war which is getting uglier by the day. Apparently Awchat, who opened a branch of his popular Goa Portugese chain at a premises in Lokhandwala, sub-let a portion to Vikram Ram for running Soda. According to Ram, after a recent raid by the excise department, Awchat booted him out and downed the shutters.

Now apparently all the sound equipment, expensive cutlery and other interior knicks knacks worth several lakhs have gone missing. With mutual allegations of cheating, misrepresentation and being threatened at gun-point, the fracas is now causing considerable embarrassment and anxiety to the real landlady — she’s the mother of DCP Nandkumar Chaugle, who had been earlier suspended after a sex racket was busted at his Andheri bungalow which he had rented out to a spa. As Awchat and Ram battle it out, we sense several more skeletons are likely to tumble out of many more closets and leave everyone involved with a bitter taste in the mouth.