Hyderabad: Inside a quiet by-lane of Journalist Colony in Banjara Hills, stands Qafe Bistro, a dimly-lit two-room café that has a unique USP, it caters only to women.
Started by Padmaja Thatipalli, Anusha Reddy, Chandra Vempaty and Prithvik K, Qafe Bistro is the city’s only food joint exclusively for women, offering them a “reprieve”, a comfortable place to “hang out”, where they can chat, gossip, work and most of all, be themselves. Even for hours.
But there’s a problem. Although the idea was propositioned by Prithvik, one of the men in the group, the restaurant runs a thin line of legal risk, considering the law in country clearly states that one can’t restrict admission at a public place such as a restaurant based on just the sex of the customer.
But Padmaja, a former software professional is not worried as she maintains, “The idea is as simple as running a women’s garment store or a parlour.”
The two male owners Chandra and Prithvik play their part too and don’t step into the premises when customers are around and therefore, insisted they speak outside the cafe.
“The city has a number of cafes and restaurants offering a variety of cuisines, what makes us different is that our cafe’s highlight is to reach out only to women, we even have women waitresses. And keeping that in mind, we don’t step into the restaurant during working hours, unless we have to show the place around to someone,” says Chandra.
“When we started out, many people asked us why weren’t men allowed? Some thought it was sexist, but our motive wasn’t to start a debate. Our only agenda was to offer something new,” says Anusha, a BITS-Pilani graduate.
As the battle for gender equality intensifies around us, the group doesn’t compromise on the basic idea which makes it stand out. “Whenever there have been couples or groups of men and women coming in, we have politely refused entry to the men. We have instead guided them to the Houz, a café right next door which accommodates both men and women,” adds Padmaja.
Added to this, Qafe Bistro is also aiming to become an entrepreneur hotspot. The cafe is teaming up with organisations, photographers and fashion designers as hospitality partners, to provide women entrepreneurs a platform.
Prithvik says, “We didn’t start the café with a feminist agenda or any other alarming concern, but since we have this place now, we try and reach out to housewives or even small-scale bakers, we help connect the customers and the entrepreneurs.”
On the logistics front, Qafe Bistro is pretty low maintenance since it shares its kitchen with the nearby Houz. And so, the partners are now focusing on social media and word-of-mouth promotions to get more women to the Cafe.
And about safety, because the customers often tend to spend long hours, late into the evening, the bistro also plans to collaborate with cabs services in the city, serving women exclusively.
“Although most of our customers use their own bikes or cars, we are planning to tie-up with women-only cab services so that they can leave late.”
