How is the life of a cafe/restuarant owner in Goa?

Most of us would have been to Goa to enjoy the beaches, sunsets, long rides on beautiful roads, and most importantly eat seafood and drink cheap booze. There are no statistics on the number of cafes/restaurants in Goa. Goa runs on tourism. This means one can find a restaurant located every 50 metres.

While most of us enjoy food and a drink in one of these cafes, we hardly question who these people are who are running the show. To run a business in Goa is no ordinary job. A filled restaurant or an empty one depends on the services offered. Managing staff off-season, keeping customers pleased, maintaining the required ambience, and most importantly serving good food adds to the burden.

On my all-India cycle tour, I had the privilege of meeting Mr Mukhesh Meena who runs the cafe Bunk N Brew at Palolem, a crowded tourist location. Speaking with him allowed me to understand the psyche that goes into being a restaurant owner in Goa.

So, how is the life of a cafe/restaurant owner in Goa?

Table of Contents

Qualifications of a cafe/restaurant owner in Goa

When a well-built man fit to be a gym trainer sat a couple of tables away from me, I wasn’t reluctant to ask him who he was. Sternly, Mukhesh replied that he was the owner of the place. His body language also translated with his words as he put his crossed legs on the table. My immediate conceptions of him faded as I spoke with him further. It turned out that Mukhesh was a well-spoken kind man who offered to speak about himself and the business he was running.

I learnt that he was an IIT Delhi dropout. He could clear his JEE exams in one go, but he figured that the certificate he would turn out to have will mean nothing if he wanted to run his own show.

Born to a family of farmers in Rajasthan, Mukhesh said he understood very early on, he wanted to be a boss and not work for a boss. After he quit his engineering course at IITD, he entered the world of modelling. Soon he realized that was not where he wanted to head. He ventured into the bodybuilding and fitness trainer profession after that, which he continues to pursue to date.

It was 2016 by this time he was an established fitness trainer at a gym, training some big personalities. The drive to achieve more did not let him stagnate there. As he was born into a family of farmers, he decided to learn a thing or two about the same. He started learning about hydroponics in 2016 while continuing to be a gym trainer.

While Mukhesh was a gym trainer in Mumbai, he met a client from Goa who ran a Yoga centre called Sampurna Yoga at Goa. Learning from his experiences of how he set up his business, in 2019 Mukhesh finally built his gym in Agonda, Goa. As it turns out, It is not any ordinary gym. Mukhesh built the largest open gym in India.

The Jungle Gym

https://g.co/kgs/1cJn8K

After 4 years of learning hydroponics, he finally opened his business called Bombay Hydroponics. He said he has just received an FBA (Fulfilment By Amazon), which will mean he will take the sales to a different level with online marketing.

Bombay Hydroponics

ttps://g.co/kgs/uZRpqw

Now that Mukhesh had his gym which he continues to be a personal trainer at in the morning, a fully established Hydroponics company, it was time for his next venture.

Only 6 months back, he sensed an opportunity to open a cafe in Goa. As one of his clients was building a hostel in Canacona, Goa, Mukhesh figured it was the right time for him to open a cafe just beside. He said he is an engineer at heart, so he designed the entire place himself. Hand built the whole thing.

Bunk N Brew

https://g.co/kgs/oWH8P2

Today, Mukhesh goes to the gym and trains his clients in the morning and the rest of the day he stays at his cafe managing it and enjoying his time.

The Mindset of a Cafe/restaurant Owner in Goa

What Mukhesh had done is impressive. I wanted to know how he got the drive to do all this at the young age of 26.

Mukhesh said when he was in 5th grade in school, his dad used to earn 6 rupees a month. He has seen what poverty is and the company he surrounded himself with also showed him how powerful money could be. He wanted to make sure that he earned enough to be able to get whatever he wanted. He said today he earns a 7-digit figure from the Hydroponics business alone.

He respects his parents a lot and says he has put them in a place where they don’t have to repent ever in their life. Both of them live in Rajasthan enjoying their life he said.

Mukhesh said that he does not want the boss to tell him where to breathe. That’s the reason he couldn’t foresee himself as an employee. He said he gets the kick out of trying new things and learning from them. He calls it investing in himself. That’s exactly what he did between 2016 and 2020. The amount of time it took for him to learn about hydroponics before venturing there. He continues to learn about cash flow technique which he says is essential for big businesses. In short, he summarized his thoughts by saying “Learnings will make your earnings”.

Justifications

The reason to be going all out running multiple businesses and not stopping was simple. He enjoyed it. Mukhesh said he is always working in his head. Sometimes he wakes up from the bed in the middle of the night to list down his ideas. According to Mukhesh, it is better to be a chai wala selling tea outside a Multi National Company to the MNC employees rather than being an employee at the MNC. The chai wala here has a life of his own. He could go where he liked and do what he wanted, unlike the MNC employee. Mukhesh said that he felt lucky that he figured it out at a very young age.

Validations

Mukhesh said he didn’t have any friends and that he didn’t need any. He said if you share too much, you can be used. He doesn’t want to be dependent on friends or anyone for that matter. On asking if he doesn’t feel lonely, he said loneliness isn’t his stuff. He has been living outside his house since he was 17. He said he feels powerful when he is alone and it also makes him more creative. He said when one gets rich, you don’t get friends where money is not a matter of friendship. He feels okay with that. For him, loyal friends are hard to find. Apart from that, validations are overrated as one does not need them to be successful according to him.

He also added, when he was starting the Hydroponics business, people looked down on him saying he wanted to start a leafy vegetable-selling firm. The same people do not dare to look at him today. It seemed like Mukhesh hadn’t had a great experience with the friendships he had made in his life.

Complains

As surprising as it sounds, Mukhesh said that his biggest complaint is that girls do not value him much in a relationship. On asking him if that was his biggest complaint in life, he nodded. He said everything else in his life is under his control. He could get what he puts his mind to, but he couldn’t control the mind of another person.

Mukhesh spoke a lot about his relationships and experiences he had with girls. Although he wanted to show care,q he seemed to be disrespected each time. That hurt him a lot. Apart from his parents, nobody has valued his emotions truly. Girls fail to value his time, love, care, and compromise. He said girls judge because one doesn’t fit in their box. 99 things may seem fine, but if one thing doesn’t fit in their box will mean that they will hold onto it.

It seemed like Mukhesh was meeting a lot of girls who came to Goa but eventually leave. This meant he couldn’t hold onto a relationship for long. This was hurting him. Being glued to his cafe was another reason he has girls coming into and out of his life he said.

Mukhesh also penned down a note in my diary. On asking him to write whatever he wanted to as this was my first day in Goa. He simply wrote about how important it is to value emotions.

Materialism

I asked Mukhesh what would he do with all the money he earns. He said he would want to run more businesses that would help people. Be it staying fit, eating right, or purchasing good food, he will try to make their life comfortable. He went on to say that he started the Hydroponics business because he wanted to avoid pesticides and insecticides entirely. He wanted to allow people to grow their food at home, so he started kits that would allow people to grow food at home. He cared about his customers.

As much as he seemed to be invested in making money, he also seemed sweet in saying that he wanted to help people in the best possible way he could. “I have many ideas”, he said. To be useful to the entire nation he needed more money. While speaking, he pulled a kid who was a waiter at his cafe by his side and told me that the kid had suicidal tendencies before coming there. He employed the kid to make sure that he lived a better life.

When I asked him what he would do if I gave him a sum of money he wouldn’t be able to exhaust in his lifetime, he said he would give the majority of it away as charity.

Future plans of a cafe/restaurant owner in Goa

In the next two years, Mukhesh wants to start travelling, now that he has a self-sustaining business module. All three businesses (Gym, Hydroponics, and Cafe) are running on autopilot mode presently, as he has the employees take care of them. He also wants to settle down in a meaningful relationship with time.

Before departing, I asked Mukhesh why he decided to speak with me. He seemed to be so held up, he could have easily vacated the place. He replied saying that everyone is a book. He wanted to open it as I was interested in reading it. He also said that sometimes when he opens the book some good people write good things there. He felt he could open the book to me.

In my journey, I came across only one another person who didn’t need any sort of validation or didn’t have any complaints. Similar to Mukhesh, he too had ideas of earning big and putting his parents in a comfortable position in life (read this article).

Asutosh

I am a 31 year young PhD graduate who has decided to travel the length and breadth of India on my cycle, to document the journey of meeting a vast array of people. In my journey, I intend to understand the characteristic features of the people of this nation and categorize them based on their demographics, age, profession, gender, traditions, and cultural differences.