“I want to call this the Tinder table. Or maybe the Bumble table,” chuckles Nirav Shah, discussing the 24-seater community table that occupies pride of place at his newly-launched café, Bask. “Or, let’s call it the Swipe Right table,” he says, clearly delighted at the idea. “A lot of people will end up making friends here.”
In 1999, Nirav and his two brothers, Bhavesh and Pratik, started a little coffee shop on Chennai’s quiet, leafy Greenways Road, with a short vegetarian menu, a basic Krups home coffee machine and a good idea, backed with the courage that comes from having no experience. They were straight out of college, and the space — named Coffee? — quickly filled with friends, and friends of friends, till it closed in 2008.
