"Dad was old and there was no one to look after it since I am an architect and too busy at my job. There were also too many government hassles,” Neville Ferzandi, son of Darius who owns Byculla Restaurant and Bakery told mid-day on January 21, 2020. The newspaper reported that the eatery is "now shutting down.” Established in 1934, the Restaurant was listed in mid-day’s list of 10 lesser-known Irani Cafes in March 2019. "So it is doubly sad to see the eatery bowing out,” noted the newspaper.
Darius’s brother and erstwhile partner Plumarz narrated the history of the Restaurant and Bakery in a video on Bombay’s relatively unknown cafes (https://www.mid-day.com/videos/guide-awards-lesser-known-irani-cafes-byculla-restaurant-and-bakery/1025469). He narrated that their (unnamed) father acquired a partnership in the Restaurant and Bakery in 1947. The senior gentleman had come to India as a boy of nine in 1918 and worked in an eatery in Kamathipura to learn the ropes of the business. "At one time (the family) had stakes in five restaurants from Byculla to the Cricket Club of India,” Plumarz narrated.
Darius and Plumarz’s father came to the eatery dressed in a shirt and pant, and "then changed into a striped lengha before standing at the galla (cash counter).” Plumarz spoke of vegetable vendors from the nearby wholesale market who dropped in for chai and did their hisaab (accounts); customers who wanted to place their religious icons at the little shrine to Zarathushtra in the eatery; of their regular customers "who have once tasted our mava cakes, plum cakes, patties… keep on coming back” even after moving out of Byculla; of Christian families who would drop in after mass at the Gloria Church from across the road. Irani restaurants are being taken over by the Shettys and the MacDonalds, rued Plumarz, ascribing the change to the newer generation not wanting to continue in their forefathers’ footsteps.