Today: Riyaaz Amlani, CEO & MD, Impresario Handmade Restaurants

1) How did your bars survive the lockdown?

The past eight months have significantly impacted our business plans. We had to make many design interventions to make the outlets Covid  ready, and yet provide the same Social vibe.  We made it convenient and safe for our customers to order, both inside the restaurants, and through home delivery. We launched our tech-enabled platform to encourage customers to order directly, eliminating the third-party aggregators.

2) How long do you think before things get back to normal?

With passing time, we have seen growth in business. By November we were upto 55% of pre-COVID level, and by the end of December, the business should be at 75%. We are taking a month on month view rather than an annual or quarterly view.

3) What is your strategy going forward?

Business is increasing every month as customer confidence goes up, and they become   comfortable about  dine-out. We are  also focusing on various activities to drive footfall. Social introduced a pan-India bar campaign in October called #ThatOnePerson, where we  invited patrons to celebrate responsibly with their best friend by offering their first drink free. The campaign was extremely effective. We have also seen a big boost in our delivery business, growing  between 200-300% for all our brands. To promote our co-working concept Social Works, we launched #OpenHouseweek where people were allowed to work free for a week from 11AM to 7PM.

Our expansion plans have also been moving along. We recently launched  three new outlets,- Elante Social, Dwarka Social (India’s first Covid response ready outlet), Thane Social. We are also taking Social to Indore.