Artistic flavours
There is a lot brewing at the four-month-old The Grind Cafe, in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad. The cafe in a by-lane of Road No. 3 is an office space for the IT company Laalsa Business Insights and a creative platform for art enthusiasts. Here, one can sip a hot cappuccino and enjoy the artwork on its walls or have an impromptu karaoke session with friends.
“The art work is not just for decor, the walls are a space for artists to display works,” says the cafe founder, Suresh Redyam, a techie with experience in the restaurant business. The Grind Cafe’s story began in 2023 when Banjara Hills-resident Suresh chose to shift his company from Gachibowli because he didn’t want his employees to spend a lot of time commuting to work. Looking for plug and play offices in the area, he found the present location in an old four-bedroom house in June 2023. A few brainstorming sessions later, he decided to set up his office and also create a space for creative expression there.
The seating arrangement is spread out; while Laalsa employees and Suresh sit with their laptops at at various spaces, the visitors to this 65-seater cafe can take a bite of chicken wings, pizza, pasta or burger. The bedrooms have been converted into enclosures to listen to vinyl records, conduct karaoke and singing sessions with friends or have small private parties or discussions. Suresh didn’t want to leave the walls empty and wondered if art could be brought in as more than just decor. His wife Smitha being an art collector, he decided to create a market space for it. The picture hanging systems from the Netherlands showcase around 120 works in different mediums and themes
. “”Working professionals have a keen interest in art; they want to buy a painting not for investment but to create an aesthetic look to their rooms,” says Suresh. The coffeehouse has already hosted a couple of art-related workshops. The art pieces will soon have a QR code that can be scanned for information on the work and artist. With a footfall of 60 people every day, Suresh hopes the cafe will also be a hub for visitors to enjoy artistic flavours.
Room for art
A few existing cafes that combine food and art
Gallery Cafe
Ofen
Art , food and nostalgia
Katha Specialty Coffee and Artisanal Bakehouse is a treat for the tastebuds and eyes. Two houses and a building in a row with symmetrical staircases on the quaint little street off the main road on Road No. 2 Banjara Hills have been converted to create this Instagrammable cafe. The aim of the eight-month-old cafe launched by Pravishta Nadella and Aditya Jaiswal is to provide a unique experience with a bit of nostalgia, informs the cafe’s marketing and creative head, Prerna Kolluri.
The cafe is also a visual storyteller to its visitors with its curated displays. The first floor, is their in-house gallery photographs spread neatly. The uniqueness of the six-artist line-up is they are all analogue photographers. “We want to play with nostalgia and pop culture simultaneously. We want to speak about analogue as people today enjoy the slow meditative approach of film photography rather than picking out from ten different options from the digital,” says Prerna.
The launch display on fine art from April to September in 2023 had a line-up of 10 artists and their interpretation of coffee. “We wanted the customer to have a dialogue with their experiences. When you sit in a space surrounded by art, you subconsciously have a dialogue with it, even if you consciously not look at it,” she says. The listening room on the first floor, in collaboration with Revolver Club magazine from Mumbai, has a vinyl player for music and karaoke enthusiasts.
With an aim to support the local artist community, the cafe also hosts a design pop-up once a month by a spectrum of artists including painting, digital painting, comics, anime and illustration showcasing their works. “There is a dearth of design or art-based pop-ups in Hyderabad, we usually see food, lifestyle or clothing-based pop-ups.”
Hoping to create more room for art, Prerna says, “For now, we stick to visual displays but once people realise there’s a gallery here, we want to do auctions too.”
Food and art
Vyaami Srena cafe and restaurant launched in September 2023 combines food and art. Vyaami Srena, meaning continuous victory in Bhagavad Gita, is a 250-seater built on a sprawling 6000 square feet with a cafe, restaurant and an outdoor lounge besides Peddamma temple on Road no. 44, Jubilee Hills. “Our idea was to combine food and art,” says its founder and advocate Venkat Nadimenti. The first curation by artist Aasha Radhika had a display of works by 63 artists for Dasara in October 2023.
.
