In Bangalore, Pubbing is No Longer Hip

By Saritha Rai

In the good old days, Dileep Wasan used to hit the pub two or three times a week, sometimes more.

Sitting on a high stool, sipping pints of frothy beer and listening to loud music with a bunch of friends made for many fun evenings.

When he had out-of-town visitors, a Bangalore pub crawl was on the must-do list. That was 15 years ago.

Today pubbing is no longer hip in Bangalore, India's "young" city. Pub owners lament that the fizz has gone out of the business. So, it has quietly come to pass that Bangalore is no more the pub capital of India.

One of the city's iconic pubs, Anyone but India, shut last month. Others like Black Cadillac, 180 Proof, Underground and Night Watchman went down earlier. Once, mixed groups of men and women dressed in the latest fashions, downed draught beer and listened to the latest Bollywood and Billboard hits. Now, there is a desolate air about Bangalore's pubs.

NASA, the latest pub casualty, was modelled like the inside of a space ship. There were others that replicated a London tube station and a cricket stadium. Inside NASA, the lighting was neon blue and serving staff was dressed as astronauts. Unveiled in the mid-'90s by beer baron Vijay Mallya himself, the pub was so popular that customers lined up at the door. Now, a multinational food chain outlet will take NASA's place on Church Street.

Starting in the '80s, pubs brought about a cultural change in Bangalore. They added to its air of relaxed cool. The city's pubs busted the myth that women cannot drink in public. They changed the notion that drinking places are shady and dingy. They made bouncers and condom vending machines "in".

There is no charm left in running a pub anymore, says entrepreneur Ashok Sadhwani who successfully managed NASA and Pub World for a decade-and-a-half. Multiple factors have led to a steady downhill in the pub business. One of them is Bangalore's Cinderella Rule which mandates that the city's drinking holes shut down a half-hour before midnight. Another is the no-smoking rule.

Bangalore is now in the throes of the great pub decline because high real estate costs and low customer turnout has made the business model unviable. From over a thousand, there are now less than a 100 pubs in Bangalore. In downtown Bangalore, you can count the pubs on your fingers, Sadhwani says. His other venture Pub World will shut its doors soon.

Pub World, modelled after a typical English pub was all the rage in its day. It held the monthly record for selling over 300 kegs of beer, the rough equivalent of 2,000 glasses of beer daily. As Pub World's European customers used to say, not even in Germany can they pull this off. These days, the pub sells 300 kegs in a whole year.

Bangalore's pub culture is dying because beer drinkers these days are spoilt for choices, says Carlton Braganza who runs the lounge restaurant chain called Opus. Nobody wants to drink beer and listen to music in the background, he says. They want live bands, poetry readings, supper theatre.

Bangalore has come the full circle and it is almost old-fashioned to be seen in pubs these days. Meanwhile, the city's lounge bars with their plusher sofas and soft-light ambience have stepped in to innovate and grab customers. Opus itself offers quizzes, karaoke nights, live bands and flea markets. It is a pubby environment but with a lot of add-ons. For instance, playing some cool guitar riffs to an audience of 200 recently at Opus, was politician Milind Deora.

Oddly enough, the latest data show that beer drinking has risen 16 per cent in the city in the last six months. Bangalore is still drinking plenty of beer but destination preferences are changing. There are so many options that guzzlers display no loyalty to a particular pub or lounge. The audience is very flirty and flighty, says Braganza.

A few cult pubs such as Pecos and Windsor Pub have bucked the trend. Wasan and other hardcore fans swear by the ambience and the hard rock music at Pecos on Rest House Road. If not for these atmosphere-filled places, he would stop going to pubs altogether, says Wasan.

Source: Indian Express