The morning rush usually arrives in waves—office workers asking for tea, delivery boys grabbing orders, cooks shouting over the steady hiss of LPG burners. But this morning the rhythm breaks abruptly. The burners are cold. The kettles never whistle. A metal shutter hangs halfway open at the front door. In some places, shutters are down completely, while some eateries are providing limited food options over an induction stove. Still others are making a choice, either breakfast or lunch and no dinner.
Scenes like this have been playing out across cities over the last few days as the local food service economy struggles due to a shortage of gas, triggered by the war in West Asia. While Chennai, among the earliest to flag the crisis last week, is now returning to normalcy, with the Tamil Nadu government announcing a Rs 2-per-unit electricity subsidy on Saturday for eateries and cloud kitchens switching to electric stoves, that isn’t the case with cities such as Delhi, Bengaluru or Mumbai.
20-30% of restaurants in these metros remain shut, according to industry bodies, with the number likely to rise, if the shortage persists. And every shutdown, whether partial or total, takes its toll on people.
Restaurant Struggle
Pradeep Shetty, vice-president, Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India and spokesperson for the Hotel and Restaurant Association (Western India), says that a small eatery supports between 5 and 12 workers, including cooks, helpers, cleaners, and delivery staff. The number increases significantly with size, as sales volumes are tied to orders served or delivered quickly.
“The more the hands in the kitchen and delivery station, the better it is for the food service economy. The flip side is that even a two-day fuel shortage can disrupt operations completely and push people out of work,” Shetty says. This is becoming visible across restaurants in the country.
According to the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), the country’s food services sector employs around 8.5 million people directly and indirectly. Executives say that a fuel crisis such as the current gas shortage could trim the overall workforce by at least 10-15% if not addressed quickly.
“For many small outlets, a single weekend of not being able to run means not knowing if they will ever be able to open again. The losses can impair them for a long time,” said Pranav Rungta, vice-president of the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI).
At Vishwa Shanthi Hotel in Santacruz East, Mumbai, for instance, proprietor Ossie Vaz says he has had to let go of at least two people out of a staff of seven members to curtail costs. At the nearby Theeram restaurant, owner Joseph Mathew says he has asked three out of his six-member staff to head to their villages for now, till he arranges for alternative fuels. “Induction cooktops are an option. But the power consumption is significant. For small eateries such as ours, the overhead is signficant,” Mathew says.
Resilience in Crisis
Bengaluru’s iconic VV Puram Food Street, locally known as Thindi Beedi, wears a deserted look over the weekend, with barely 20% of its shops open. Shutters have been down, while small stalls that would typically fire up their griddles for the evening rush sit idle. At Shree Vasavi Mane Thindi, one of the street’s busiest outlets, staff mills about a near-empty kitchen. Vendors who were open said they were running on fumes — rationing what little LPG they had left.
In Delhi, enquiries for franchise expansions have fallen significantly over the past one week, says an executive from The Rolling Plate, a cloud kitchen franchise, as investors remain worried about starting cloud kitchens in these uncertain times.
The executive told FE that The Rolling Plate has also halted the hiring of temporary staff for now.
Akram Qureshi, owner of popular Al-Jawahar Restaurant, which is located opposite Jama Masjid in Delhi said that with Eid approaching in a week, most restaurant owners in the vicinity are a worried lot.
“Not just commercial LPG, firewood stocks are also dwindling, which is making it incredibly hard to continue making slow-roasted meals,” Qureshi said.
At Szechuan Dragon, a Chinese restaurant next to BMS College of Engineering on Bull Temple Road in Bengaluru, a notice taped to the glass entrance door makes it clear that discounted payments through Swiggy, Zomato, Eazydiner and Magicpin will not be accepted till the LPG issue is resolved.
Chinese cooking, say staff at the Szechuan Dragon, is built around the wok — high-flame, fast-heat cooking that simply cannot be replicated on electric or induction stoves.
With legitimate supply of gas all but dried up, some restaurant owners in the area said commercial LPG cylinders were being sold for as much as Rs 8,000 on the black market — several times the regulated price — putting them out of reach for smaller operators already bleeding revenue.