Meals In Transit

Bangalore Boasts Of The Largest Food Court In The Country

Vyas Sivanand - Bangalore

With Bangalore gearing up to cater to the need of a growing number of ardent consumers, Prestige Group, which set-up a shopping mall - Forum, boasts of the largest food court in the country. Christened, Transit, the food court has 11 kitchens and 13 counters serving different cuisine. While Prestige Leisure Resorts Pvt Ltd, controls the entire set-up, the kitchens have individual players.

The counters at the Transit food court include:

• Movenpick, which serves ice-creams from Switzerland
• Beijing Bites a Chinese restaurant
• Paramount which serves Indian and Mughlai cuisine
• Bay of wraps which serves vegetarian and non-vegetarian rolls
• Fry-Days, which serves only fries
• Panda House serving Thai, Continental and Mediterranean cuisine
• Subway, which serves sandwiches
• Salem Kitchen serving non-vegetarian dishes from Tamil Nadu;
• An invitee kitchen or joker kitchen, where one could hire the counter for one month to host food festivals
• 5 degree Centigrade, which serves a variety of beverages
• 3 Amigos, which serves only vegetarian Mexican food
• Shiv Sagar, which serves vegetarian South Indian dishes along with chaats, parathas, bhaturas, samosas, etc.

The food court also has a kids zone for children below eight years. The food court can seat upto 520 people at one go and is spread across an area of 30,000 square feet. "All kitchens are menu exclusive and no one outlet serves what the other kitchen serves. This ensures that there is no competition between outlets. As for revenue sharing, we work jointly with the outlets on a minimum guarantee and a percentage of sales," said Nawabzada Omer Bin Jung, managing director, Prestige Leisure Resorts Pvt Ltd.

Transit has shades of yellow, black and white which have been harmoniously put together to create an 'on the move' kind of ambience. "We have included a performance stage in the food court for people to come up and use it for some kind of activity. The stage is audio-visually connected. In addition to this we have incorporated appropriate lighting facilities for the stage. Also there are eight plasma televisions all around the food court for the viewing pleasure of people at the court," said Mohammed Tajamul, operations manager, Transit.

Promoting the fast food service concept, at Transit is the 'self service' model, where guests serve themselves while the cleaning is taken care by the staff. "We ensure that the waiting period at the counter kept to the bare minimum so as to avoid any kind of chaos. While the kitchen is controlled individually, the washing area is common so as to control the level of hygiene. Even the service staff is controlled at one point," said Tajamul.

An all day dining option, the food court is open from 11 am to 11 pm and guests can choose from over 500 items from the menu. "This is the largest food court in the country and we plan to launch two more such food courts in Bangalore. Transit will be a brand name soon and we are also planning to take it to other cities. Our total investment for the shopping mall has been Rs100 crores of which Rs10 crores went into Transit," concluded Omer.