There used to be a nice little café in a corner of Shoppers Stop at the South City Mall.
BRIO.
It had the most amazing Blueberry Cheese cake.
I always made it a point to go there once every week and I always had the same pastry along with the wonderful Darjeeling tea they had.
The people who served had begun to recognise me and would ask as soon as I sat down ‘the same sir?’ I would nod yes and then spend the next half an hour in slowly enjoying my favourite tea and pastry.
It was like my own little café, something I’d discovered and kept coming back to, and the people always welcoming me.
So I couldn’t wait to go there after I’d returned.
But as I went there last Sunday with a friend I was shocked to see large signs of Café Coffee Day in the café. Everything was the same except the signs were changed as were the people who served there. So it initially didn’t register for a while.
The person who came to serve us explained – ‘BRIO is closed sir and this place is taken over by Café coffee day. In fact it’s closed all over the country.’
What!?
It’s like a nice little café with it’s own speciality is suddenly gone – POOF - and in it’s place is another one of those giant mass conglomerate which is popping up all over the country like mushrooms and which you see everywhere and you just can’t escape no matter how much u want to.
The worst part is that the people don’t seem to care or mind at all.
Aren’t people tired of Barista’s and café coffee day’s already…..? c’mon, I mean seriously?
The same tea and coffee, the same snacks, pastries, sandwiches….. the same bloody everything! (why the hell don’t they change the damn menu!?)
Even the people that come to these places look the same all over, young 20 something’s; each one conscious been ‘seen’ having a ‘good time’ in a ‘happening’ café.
Yaaawwnnnnnn……
The coffee? Well that’s just an afterthought. If they’d really been there for the coffee, they’d have thrown it in the bin after the first sip itself.
Give me the noise and crowd of the college street coffee house any day to the uniformity and pseudo ambience of the CCD’S and the Baristas.

Man I miss my BRIO! :-(