"Maintain the goodwill the property enjoys,” was his late father Rusi’s constant advice to restaurateur Hoshang Yazdegardi. The somewhat iconic Cafe Mondegar on Colaba Causeway was awarded Bombay’s and India’s best dive bar of the year on September 15-16, 2018 at the India Nightlife Convention and Awards (INCA) in New Delhi. The Cafe was selected for the accolade from eight finalists in the all-India round by public voting. In their third edition, the Awards are organized by event management company Kickstart Entertainment in association with National Restaurant Association of India. Winners are chosen from about 17 categories in the hospitality industry.
Sure, there is a feel good factor about getting the award, smiles 41-year-old managing partner Hoshang, over a plate of sandwiches at the Cafe on October 5. The restaurateur’s "greatest high” comes when the customers leave the premises jiving to the music playing on the juke box. The Cafe serves over 200 items, and cuisines range from Continental to Chinese, tandoori and Mughlai. Mondegar was the first Bombay cafe to be listed in The Lonely Planet travel guide back in the late 1980s, informs Hoshang.
Cafe Mondegar, inset: managing partner Hoshang Yazdegardi Photos: Jasmine D. Driver
Clockwise from top left: Accolade for the Cafe; Hoshang with father Rusi (seated);
iconic location at Colaba circa 1890
"Running a restaurant is a thankless job. One has to contend with multiple licensing bodies,” states Hoshang. A November 19, 2014 eviction notice for "violation of lease norms” from the Bombay Port Trust to the landlords of Metro House in which the eatery is located is still ongoing (see "BPT targets Mondy’s,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, June 7, 2015).
"It is a good thing that people are recognizing the value of Irani cafes,” he muses, happy about the recent new found taste for Parsi-Irani food among Bombay’s eaters-out. Hoshang states that he would like that in 2025, the Cafe should have the same look and feel. "We want people to come back again and again for the ambience,” pointing to cartoonist Mario Miranda’s brightly painted murals on the walls (created in 1990), the menus under the glass over checked table cloths.
While the word "dive” may have negative connotations for some, the young crowd that patronizes the eatery (open from 7.30 a.m. to midnight) is testimony to the Cafe being a "must be seen at” locale for many people. The Cambridge Dictionary defines a dive as "a restaurant, hotel, bar, or place for entertainment or social activities that is unpleasant because of the condition of the building or the type of people that go there.” Dr Simin Patel, who is researching Irani cafes and co-authoring a book on these once ubiquitous eating places, mentions that a dive is a place that has become "gentrified” over the years. "I would not call Mondegar a dive. It was among the first Irani cafes to convert to a beer bar, as a survival technique... Spaces and names like ‘dive’ have become fashionable lately.”
"‘Create your own brand,’ my father told me... I had a head start because of him and the efforts of older brother Farshid,” notes Hoshang. Farshid was the man on the ground when the city was awakening to the pub culture in the late 1980s and early 1990s. "Dad looked after the place during the day time and Farshid in the evening hours...It was Farshid who inducted me into the restaurant really, with my father being the mentor.” The elder sibling, who for a while ran Zamu’s Place, an eatery in Poona, "now acts as my sounding board.”
Hoshang is married to Manreez. The couple have two children, Khaizahn (10) and Daunish (six). Mother Zarine was a caterer at Wodehouse Gymkhana. "I remember her advice...‘Treat staff like family,’ she always said... I try to live by it,” said Hoshang.
The vibes at the Cafe are just the same as they were when Rusi took over the reins in 1986 from his brother-in-law Kaikhushroo Tirandazian, states Hoshang. "The history is a mystery,” he says, stating that the eatery was probably set up in the last two decades of the 19th century. A black and white photo of the erstwhile Apollo Hotel at the site where the Cafe stands now greets visitors at the entrance. "Of course we have made improvements over the years,” Hoshang said. He points out to the electronic juke box that replaced an earlier one, and inner area for serious beer lovers.
"Dad took a chance. He changed the place from a ‘regular’ Irani restaurant to a pub back in 1986, the first to serve draught beer in the city,” beams Hoshang. When Rusi wanted to start serving masala dosas in response to a request from a regular customer, "we all said no! But that is how much he kept the customer’s tastes in mind.”