By Ayesha Shahid
Cafes have become a major hit in the country and tea /coffee have become an integral part of the urban culture. The café culture has spawned in the last eight or nine years by the mushroom growth of coffee shops especially in Lahore. The cafes are the ‘in’ thing these days especially among youth: turn the lights down, play loud rap music, pass around a child-friendly tobacco-free hookah (sheesha) market the joint as ‘hip’ and you have the license to sell coffee at a nice little markup.
Apart from the coffee/tea and snacks, what makes these coffee shops the centre of attraction is the distinct ambience. I myself have witnessed my friends who are not coffee connoisseurs, yet they have developed a kind of obsession for their local coffee shops. Most of them agree that it is the ambience that attracts them with the irresistible appeal. – the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, the plush seating, the music, the dramatic lighting and to top it all the ‘cool’ gals and guys- all make these young people coming back to these cafes time and again.
If we look at the evolution of the café culture in Pakistan since partition, we’ll notice that it has undergone a tremendous transformation. Even in pre partition era, literary and artistic activity in Lahore had traditionally revolved around cafes and restaurants. The Mall was marked with cafes and restaurants such as Coffee House, Cheneys Lunch Home and Pak tea house where writers, intellectuals and artists spent hours, having nonstop cups of tea to trigger the creative process. They would hold endless discussions on subjects that were relevant, creative and close to their hearts.
The Business plan on Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Marketing Plan
The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf [CBTL] was founded by Herb & Mona Hyman in 1963 in Brentwood, California. CBTL is the oldest and largest privately held specialty coffee and tea retailer in the United States and celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. According to Hoovers, online, the company operates approximately 900 franchised stores worldwide with sales of $198.1 million last year. CBTL ...
Among these tea shops, Pak Tea House (that has recently been shut down) in particular became the abode of creative and intellectual processes. It was the favorite hideout of leading writers and politicians who visited it not to have a cup of tea alone but to invoke the ‘heavenly muse’ so that they come up with creative ideas Famous names, such as Mira Ji, Saadat Hasan Manto, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Kamal Rizvi, Munir Niazi, Ustad Amanat Ali, Intizar Hussain and many others have spent innumerable evenings in the tea house, which used to remain open until midnight The celebrated fiction writer, Intizar Hussain, has been a regular visitor to the tea house since 1949. According to him, “No other literary institution of the country including the Academy of Letters has credibility equal to the Pak Tea House”. He believes it is a cultural institution which is known all over the sub-continent. It has also been at the centre of political movement as well. He says people freely expressed their political views in the Pak Tea House – even in the repressive days of the military regimes of General Ayub Khan and Gen Zia ul Haq.
Mr Mansoori, Professor of International Relations at Punjab University, had been a regular visitor to Pak Tea House . In his words, the closing of Pak Tea House is the closure of the last remaining hideout for writers and intellectuals in the city. Even if we look at the west, one of the interesting features of the coffee shops in the late 50’s and 60’s was: Church officials used the coffee shops as an informal platform for teaching Bible. So the concept of coffee and tea houses has always revolves around creativity and rejuvenation of talents.
Today’s coffee shops offer an altogether different atmosphere than their predecessors. In today’s coffee shops the central theme is still coffee, but, many coffee shops are more in the nature of social hangouts for the young people who are doing nothing but having blasts and the places are nothing more than commercialised eateries.
The Term Paper on San Francisco Coffee House Case
1. Should Tensek and Pacek consider franchising over organic growth? Do a qualitative cost-benefit Analysis. (4 Points) In regards to whether Tensek and Pacek should consider franchising over growing additional business locations organically, there are many factors that the couple must take into account. Whether they choose to expand using a franchising or organic approach, there are major costs ...
Mrs Farida Zaidi, the owner and master mind behind Masoom’s café is of the view that Masoom’s is not catering to a particular class or age group. It is meant to be for every age group. She srtongly believes in the Pak Tea house tradition and that it should be revived. She has seen young business executives having informal meeings at the café and wishes that her café helps in doing something productive and constructive for the national development.
The coffee owners should realize that when they are restricting their target audience by offering an ambience that caters to teenagers and youth alone, how can they expect middle aged and old people with a vision to spend their time in the café where their voice is more likely to be drowned in the deafening music and hum drum. The character of Coffee shops as a place for sharing information and communication should be reinforced with the ushering of internet era. For example if we look at coffee shops in the west, some of them like Starbucks is offering free Wi-Fi internet. Furthermore the availability of books and newspapers can further help revive the tradition of the coffee houses of the yesteryears.
