HOTELS (ONCE CALLED COFFEE CLUBS)

 FROM SAMPATH’S DESK:

  

 

HOTELS (ONCE CALLED COFFEE CLUBS)

(A SOUTH INDIAN SCENARIO)

  

In India and Hinduism, ‘Anna Dhaan’ (அன்ன தானம்) and  ‘Vidya Dhaan - Education’ (வித்யா தானம்) are considered noble and Good Samaritan acts, with the former being vehemently hailed as primary. 

For eons, we had charity choultries at vantage locations for people to stay en route to their destination for rest and food free of cost. Earlier, we had water pandals in many places - especially during summer seasons - when and where water and buttermilk used to be available to the general public without any cost. Slowly and steadily, the same has undergone transformation leading to today's commercialization. The result is we have hotels and restaurants today where you have to pay for everything.

In the old days, the hotels were called 'clubs' or 'coffee clubs'. Though many clubs and coffee clubs sprang up, their popularity was only mediocre to start with, as people of yesteryear avoided eating outside their sweet homes. Subsequently, the patronage for clubs picked up and  phenomenally increased.

Earlier, in the clubs, there would be two or three cooks, two or three servers, and obviously at the Cash Counter sat the owner. The furniture was simple. You had table-like structures with marble slab top to easily clean. No plates. Banana leaves or Mandarai leaves (both with palatable smell or aroma) were used to serve the tiffin to customers. In many such clubs, we had to dispose off the leaves ourselves after eating, into the bin kept for the purpose.

Those days, there used to be clubs located in small/make-shift places - even under a thatched roof or in a small concrete building. Further growth was phenomenal.

 

While the Clubs and Coffee Clubs were mushrooming and flourishing in the olden days, the concept of an exclusive mess that provided meals was unknown, and rather almost absent, although, here and there, some individual houses served homely meals to select customers.

Dabara (a metallic cup) and tumbler (metallic glass) - with an outside bent or projection at the top with a somewhat sharp edge - were used to serve coffee and other hot drinks. The practice still continues. 

 

People mostly preferred filter coffee, not just instant coffee powder mixed. There would be a brass boiler for the preparation of coffee decoction and one big vessel on a heating stove for milk boiling. Preparing good and tasty coffee or tea is an art. People would order - light, medium, or strong coffee/tea - with no sugar, little sugar, or more sugar. It is the server’s duty to comply with the demands of the customer. Of course, Kumbakonam degree coffee served in brass dabara/tumbler has always been famous to date. The norm today is the ever-silver dabara/tumbler. The taste of good coffee would linger on in our mouth and tongue for quite some time after drinking it.

For special beverages like Horlicks, Boost, Maltova, etc., the server would have to take the dabara/tumbler to the Cashier (mostly the owner) and get a small quantity of the powder from one of the bottles stacked on his table as if they are a treasured trove needed to be under his safe custody! Ice water would be served at a cost if the customer asked for it!

Boarding and Lodging houses with attached restaurants made their foray and inroads only later.

The morning specials were Idli, Vada, Dosa, Pongal (with coconut Chutney and Sambar), Poori with potato side dish, coffee, tea, etc., all of which generated a mouth-watering fragrance even for the passersby. Nowadays, chutneys in different colours (onion, tomatoes, mint mixed) and tastes are served. People always preferred solid chutney.

 

There used to be a glass showcase in which sweets would be colorfully arrayed to grab the attention of the onlookers (customers). Parcel service was also available (now called ‘Take away’ service).

 

Some of the famous cafes of yesteryear were - Arya Bhavan, Udipi Hotel, Bramin Café, et al.   

I had never heard my father using the word ‘Hotel’. He used to call it a ‘club’ or ‘coffee club’.

I had seen, during my school days,  a small club nearby my house in Triplicane where there would be a beeline for breakfast and coffee every morning. The thought of going to a club or hotel never occurred to me at all because it was neither necessary nor could we afford the cost. Even if we were to visit different places by train or bus, we used to take food from home shunning those sold by the train/platform vendors mainly for hygiene’s sake. Nowadays, even the Railway has a pantry car from where hot drinks, cool drinks, tiffin, meals, etc. are sold. Shrewd travelers avoid them.

 

In those days, eating outside was considered an anathema, or bête noire.

Even though it was called a coffee club, tiffin, meals, snacks, etc. would also be available in them at scheduled timings. In the morning, tiffin and coffee/tea would be available, in the afternoon meals, and some snacks in the evening, of course, along with coffee/tea. And, there would be no meals at night. The clubs would be closed around 8.00/8.30 pm. Contrarily, today we have hotels open throughout barring internals of only a few hours at/past midnight or wee hours.

Even a huge and expansive Banyan tree of today was once a small seed. Remember the saying, ‘While eating a sweet and nutritious fruit, think of the person who had sowed the seed for planting the tree and maintained it.’

 

It was these small clubs that developed, in phases, to assume into today’s big Coffee Houses,  Hotels including Hotel chains/groups, Star Hotels, Luxury Hotels, Restaurants, Resorts, Highway Hotels and Motels, palatial hotels in sprawling complexes, etc.  And, today, we have collectively christened them the ‘Hospitality Industry’.

 

Of course, for small-budget consumers, roadside eateries have always been there to serve the purpose.

 

An attractive advertisement slogan for a hotel stay I happened to see runs as follows - ‘Wake up to watch your dreams take wings’ - that clinches the importance of a particular hotel - both it's inside and the outside environment!

   

 

Nowadays, in medium or big-size hotels, there would be an allocation of tables for individual servers to attend to the customers. Servers having their pencils/pens on their ears, (now called waiter/waitress), observer, and supervisor are the important staff members, of course besides the most important Chef and cooks inside the kitchen. In some hotels, servers and other waiter-staff appear in trim uniforms with badges.

 

In good old times, servers yelling at the top of their lungs the names of eatables ordered in order that they reached the ears of the cook(s) inside the almost dark-room kitchen (like the infamous ‘Black Hole’ of Calcutta) was common. The concept of ‘tips to the server’ was not there much less known to anyone. The server would give the pencil-written bill and we would pay it to the Cashier. Nowadays, tips have become inevitable, as we are also able to pay the bill through the server in cash, and we would ceremoniously give him a pittance what is called ‘tips.’ With the advent of Credit/Debit cards, Paytm, and other systems, the job of the cashier returning the balance, if any, to the customer(s) now stands eliminated.

 

 

Of course, for representatives from commercial establishments or those whose jobs entailed extensive traveling, it may not always be possible to take parcels of food from home, as they may have to be constantly on the move and/or make sudden departures from home at short/no advance notice. Such people may be in the know of which hotels at different places are the best bet to get good stuff to eat and drink. Otherwise, outside food for a longer time is not desirable from health point of view.

 

If you ask me, the only difference between a chef and a cook is that the chef wears a silly-looking hat. Just kidding! The major difference is that the chef is a professional; the individual has a degree in culinary arts. He has spent two to four years learning his trade, and he usually works in a professional environment - a hotel, for example. A cook, on the other hand, need not have professional credentials; anyone who dabbles in the kitchen can be called a ‘cook’. You and I can be called a ‘cook’. The word ‘chef’ is the short form of the French ‘chef de cuisine’, meaning ‘chief of the kitchen’. And, as the chief, he has many people working under him including several cooks. Usually, in our homes, a ‘cook’ toils on his/her own! Perhaps, much more important is that a chef gets paid a lot more than a cook.

 

The hospitality/tourism industry has developed alongside the growth of travel and tourism for leisure and pleasure. The more people are able to find the time and the money to travel, the more robust the hospitality/tourism industry may be able to become.

 

 

 

(R.SAMPATH)

19/5/2023