“The life journey of a little boy who went to work at a lunch home in Chennai as a cleaner, who later founded Adayar Ananda Bhavan in the 1970s which today boasts a turnover of about ₹800 crores and has multiple branches that dot the length and breadth of Chennai as well as its neighboring cities and franchise outlets in Singapore, Malaysia, in Dallas and New Jersey in the US.”
‘The baton of this sweet legacy was passed on by K.S Thirupathi Raja to his son,
Mr K.T Venkatesan and Mr. K.T Srinivasa who now acts as
The driving force behind A2B.’
Official Website – https://www.aabsweets.com/
It was in the early 1960s that KS Thirupathi Raja opened a small sweet shop, Guru Sweets, in Rajapalayam town near Madurai, Tamil Nadu. Hailing from a family of farmers, Thirupathi Raja, then chose to take the path less trodden. With the help of Raja’s wife Muthu Lakshmi, Guru Sweets dished out items like wheat halwa, laddu, Jahangir (a thicker version of jalebi), badusha, and the famous Mysore Pak. The store also sold a few savoury items, most notably Karasev, made of gram flour. The adventure, however, was short-lived as K.S. Thirupathi Raja, who passed away in 2001, shut down Guru Sweets within the decade and returned to farming.
Justifiably so, for this humble sweetmaker had clawed his way up in life, often coming precariously close to being broken by the various obstacles of fortune, before he could establish a business that began to yield returns and assure him a settled life. Adyar Ananda Bhavan, now a familiar presence in cities and towns across Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and occupying prime locations on arterial highways, also achieved another milestone by opening its first overseas unit in Frisco, Texas, United States in 2017.
The chain owes its success to the perseverance and never-say-die attitude of the founder K. S. Thirupati Raja. At a very young age, he seemed to know that he wanted to go somewhere, achieve something big, even if he wasn’t entirely certain where or what that was when he set out.
Let’s get back to the root from where it all started and what inspired
K.S. Thirupathi Raja started his own sweet shop.
Everyone has a starting point and fate. It is up to them how they want to take their life’s journey forward.
But in the end, the message is all about to
“Do What You Love and Love What You Do.” Such is the story of K.S. Thirupathi Raja.
Table of Contents
Life before starting Adayar Ananda Bhavan
In 1938, at the age of ten, he ran away from his home in Rajapalayam to escape the fate of being a farmer. In an era when child labour was not frowned upon, the little boy went to work at a lunch home in Chennai as a cleaner, literally working himself to the bone.
There, he formed a bond with the ‘master’, Achuthan Nair, a man he would remember through his life. It was from Nair that the young Raja learnt the basics and the nuances of cooking. The experience also impressed on him the important role the ‘master’ played in a food business. For Adyar Ananda Bhavan he would pick the ‘masters’ with care and train them personally.
The cleaning job took a toll on his health. After a brief spell recuperating at home in Rajapalayam, Raja went to Bombay, seeking his fortune there. He was employed as a mill hand, but a shut-down put paid to that career and he came upon the first of the many hurdles he would face.
Raja’s life was increasingly beginning to resemble the black and white Tamil tragedy films of the time. Interestingly, when he was frequenting the area around Filmistan in Bombay, he befriended a man working in the film industry who tried to convince him to join the movies. Raja was not tempted, though – his mind was set on being a businessman.
Growing With An Entrepreneurial Spirit
Unwilling to return to the farming life back in Rajapalayam, he became a dealer in books and vessels, targeting the Tamil community in Bombay. Marriage and the demands of starting a family required him to return home. Armed with the sweet-making skills he had learnt from a friend in Bombay, he opened his first shop in Ambala Puli Bazaar in 1965. It did reasonable business, but the profits weren’t big enough to keep Raja out of debt.
Can’t Hurt Me Spirit and Firm Determination
He then took a sugarcane farm on a lease, even experimenting with a sweet made from cane sugar and coconut oil. However, a cyclone in 1973 destroyed his farm and, therefore, his business. His sons say that was one of the lowest points in Raja’s life. A friend then suggested he open a sweet shop in Bangalore and Raja found a place in Srirampuram.
One by one, his two sons, Venkatesa Raja and Srinivasa Raja, discontinued their studies and joined their father, helping him source supplies and produce the sweets and savories Srinivasa Sweets came to be known for.
In Quest of that one particular location
In 1979, Raja moved to Chennai, finding a space in Old Washermenpet and called it Sri Ananda Bhavan. At last, his business seemed to be bringing him returns and he was able to settle debts and replace the family jewellery he had pawned and lost in the bad times. A deeply religious man, Raja made weekly trips to the Mangadu Kamakshi Amman temple outside Madras.
One day, he decided to go instead to the Ashtalakshmi temple in Adyar. Near the bus stand, he happened to see a shop that was available for lease. He spent days observing the place, counting the number of vehicles and people who passed that way. Then, Raja decided, would be a good place to open his next store. But fate was unkind, yet again – the property was embroiled in a sublease complication. It took him a year and a half to finally acquire the place and in 1988 it was inaugurated by KirubAnanda Variyar, the spiritual teacher Raja was devoted to, and Adyar Ananda Bhavan opened its doors to its first customers. Four years later, Raja opened an outlet in Purasawalkam, and the extra space allowed Raja to offer chaat, an arrangement he had observed in Bombay’s sweet shops. The Kolkata-style chaat won over Chennaiites.
Adayar Ananda Bhavan Bringing in the First Self-Service Restaurant
Later, the Raja family opened a store in Pondicherry, and encouraged by customer requests for hot food, decided to branch out from sweet stalls and opened Adyar Ananda Bhavan’s first self-service restaurant, marking their foray into the business. ‘There was a demand from customers, who enjoyed our sweets and savouries, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,’ Srinivasa Raja says.
The success of their first restaurant and the simultaneous surge in the sale of sweets because of the additional footfalls for the restaurant, convinced the Adayar Ananda Bhavan team that the ‘All-in’ model – large units with a sweet stall and a morning-to-night restaurant – was the way to go. The smart thing Adayar Ananda Bhavan did was to ensure that the sweets’ display was clearly visible from the seating area.
Even I have noticed and experienced myself that customers who keep seeing the sweets while they have their meals invariably make a confirm purchase. It makes them crave to try something sweet and snacky items.
Speed + Affordability + Convenience = Adayar Ananda Bhavan
(Which they made consistent since their inception.)
Traditionally, all Adayar Ananda Bhavan are quick-service restaurants, known for their speed, affordability, and convenience. The self-service areas are arranged so that customers see the food first and then buy, same as the set-up at the sweet counters. ‘This prompts customers to order items they would normally not buy off a printed menu, as they see the food and get excited,’ says Raja.
Also, the display counter model demands that the area is kept clean and hygienic. It’s easy for staff to simply pick up the food and serve customers without depending on the kitchen.
Keep on Innovating and bring something new- That what Adayar Ananda Bhavan brings on the table.
Later additions such as live counters for specials such as poli, kuzhi paniyaram and the highly-rated coffee have enhanced the customer experience. Besides, customers waiting by the live counters are unlikely to complain about delays in being served as they see the crowd ahead of them and the staff working at speed.
The Introduction of Air Conditioned Service
In the 2000s, an air-conditioned service section was added to the eateries, in addition to the self-service area. Realizing that customers, especially those who came in groups, found it difficult to go back and forth from the self-service counter and were willing to pay for service.
Well-Organized Service Offering:
Adayar Ananda Bhavan introduced an air-conditioned dining hall with table service at its outlets. These were well-integrated into the main unit and served by the same kitchen. At the dining hall, waiters do what customers do in the self-service section. After a customer places an order from the menu, the waiter generates the order token, picks up the food from the self-service counters and serves it at the table. More recently, Adayar Ananda Bhavan has implemented technology solutions and separated order-taking staff from the servers to speed up the process
We don’t follow any specific strategy: We follow our heart and intuition:
The expansion has happened apace and KT Srinivasa Raja says there is no specific strategy that they adopt. ‘People approach us, rather than the other way around,’ he says.
KT Srinivasa Raja says that customer keeps on writing to us about what they want. Expect that Adayar Ananda Bhavan will soon attract big investors to take the brand to the next level; at the current revenues of over Rs 600 crore, they will command a valuation upwards of Rs 1200 crore.
While there may be no formalized strategy document for their fast growth, we believe Adayar Ananda Bhavan has gone about expansion the instinctive way. The owners and management have evaluated and picked up high-footfall locations, executed rapidly, invested in multiple back-end food processing units to support the retail units and focused on expanding aggressively in states such as Tamil Nadu and Karnataka that can be serviced by the existing food processing units. It’s a nifty adaptation of the hub-and-spoke model. They have begun testing the waters in Delhi and the US and will use the same approach when they enter these markets.
The highway is the way of Adayar Ananda Bhavan
Adayar Ananda Bhavan is among the pioneers in the restaurants-on-highways segment. The first one came up in 2004 near Krishnagiri on the Chennai–Bengaluru highway; today nearly 25 percent of the chain’s outlets are located on highways. V. Vishnu Shankar, one of the directors, said in an interview.
‘We have tied up with Bharat Petroleum to set up outlets wherever it starts new pumps.’ On the southern highways, Adayar Ananda Bhavan has established itself as the best provider of quality and service. In the highway units, the dining areas are larger than in other locations and there are more restrooms that are reasonably clean. These are also preferred stops for various private bus operators.
The scaling up from a handful of sweet stalls to nearly a hundred eateries has necessitated ERP systems to be put in place and Srinivasa Raja says they are invaluable while managing a business as large as his.
Adayar Ananda Bhavan, which began as a family-run sweet store where father and sons produced most of the items they sold, has now invested in mechanization for many of the food-manufacturing processes.
At the Ambattur plant, machines imported from Belgium mix flour, press and fry it into the mixture, murukku and other savouries in massive temperature-controlled fryers. Rasagullas are rolled out by other contraptions and perfectly-cut burfis emerge from an assembly line. Sambar making and dosa batter production also happen at these mechanized units and are transported to restaurants in milk cans – another innovative solution. The branches upload their requirements on custom-built software every evening and in the morning, Adayar Ananda Bhavan vans speed toward them carrying their loads of sweets, savouries and base products.
But the current owners, trained by their diligent and hardworking father, believe that no SOP or machinery can quite make up for personal involvement and a hands-on approach, whether it’s conducting food audits, hiring or reviewing customer feedback;
Thirupati Raja was known to be gentle with his staff, carrying them with him and treating them like family. But these are different times and they call for different tactics. The Raja sons have been quick to adapt to the demands of business today.
This is how Adayar Ananda Bhavan started it’s humble journey from nothing to everything. And established itself as a well known brand. K.S. Thirupathi Raja’s never settle for less attitude and relentless hard work is the epitome of Adayar Ananda Bhavan success which still continues to grow.
If you dream of doing something great and want to create a dent in the universe, keep your spirit high and don’t compromise on your aspirations.
The good is yet to come someday or the other.
Thank you
