What's cooking for India's restaurant man? : The AD Singh profile

The brain behind the high-profile, swanky restaurants Olive, Monkey Bar and Fatty Bao would be flamboyant, you'd think. But AD Singh comes across as simple, both in demeanour and words.
He's readying for the Mumbai opening of SodaBottleOpenerWala, an Irani café and bar, which, after a great run in Gurgaon, New Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad, is slated for a September-launch at BKC. "In Mumbai, we've already opened Monkey Bar and The Fatty Bao. SodaBottleOpenerWala will be the third. We're coming up with Olive Bistro at Goregaon's Oberoi Mall as well, and a fifth brand (he won't say which), which will first open doors in Delhi."

It has been quite a leap from being a qualified engineer from Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, to becoming one of India's best known restaurateurs. "I was bumping around options only to figure out what I wanted to do. After I was back from the US, I worked with Cadbury. Then I thought I should work in the NGO sector. I was 28 then, and they were paying me about Rs400-600. I knew I couldn't survive like that. That's when I decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and there was no looking back. I'll call it serendipity."

SoBo-based Just Desserts, which was popular as the city's first stand-alone dessert corner, was not his first dabbling as an entrepreneur, but it launched him into the restaurant business. "I launched Party Lines – a company that organised parties at sea. I really enjoyed that stint. While it was still running, I formed a team and started Just Desserts."

Unlike many first-time entrepreneurs, Singh found immediate success. "After two years, we were bought out and didn't end up not losing any money, which is fantastic because in the hospitality business, 90 per cent first-time restaurants lose money."

The concept spaces he has set up over the years are proof that you've got to be an ideator who rightly senses consumer behaviour, and also lucky. Singh, who also the brain behind Suzie Wong, Mumbai's first floating bar, and Copa Cabaana, India's first Latino bar, says, "While I conceptualised most of the restaurants, I was a partner at The Bowling Company. As I got more mature and was able to leverage capital, I realised it was time for me to open spaces I could call my own. That's when I started Olive Bar & Kitchen in 2000 with a couple, and a friend. Though now we've bought them out and have financial investors backing us."

There were many hurdles, he says. "Capital is a huge problem for restaurateurs, especially entrepreneurs. That situation hasn't changed. Secondly, licensing is difficult, time-consuming and unclear. Then there are soaring real-estate prices and landlords. Add to that lack of professionalism in the contractor workspace. While I've never had the typical problems of concept, food and service, external issues were what I grappled with."
That's why his advice to upcoming entrepreneurs is: "While there's great opportunity in F&B, it is very tricky. Never start by yourself. Work for somebody, take a franchise, become a partner, so your hand is held through till you know to walk right."

Singh, who is in his early 50s, currently shuttles between Mumbai and Delhi, though his family is settled in the former. Given his workspace, one would expect him to be a party animal, but he says, "I am a working guy. I have never been a hard party person. I have a web of people whom I've known for long due to networking, so I'd say I'm fairly social today."

Apart from his business moves, what has his undivided attention is four-year-old daughter Zoe. "She is the apple of my eye. My typical morning is waking her up and dropping her to school. I try spending a couple of hours with her in the first half of the day."

His biggest work regret, he says, is not being able to work with Sachin Tendulkar when he approached him to start a sports bar chain together. "I never opened it back then as my board was not ready for it. I'd have loved to see where that path of destiny would have taken me."

In his view, opportunities in India are "fairly at par" as anywhere around the world, and moving out again is not really an option.