For 16 years, he’s been visiting the same Mumbai café every day

Mumbai’s Kala Ghoda Cafe (KGC) opened in January 2009. On its first day of business, stockbroker Framroz Langrana sat on a ledge outside the door and drank KGC’s first cup of coffee. Fram, as he calls himself, was KGC’s first customer. Long before that, he’d been overhearing conversations that a young, tall, curly-haired Parsi boy was having at the next table at Cafe Coffee Day in Fort, Fram’s previous spot for a caffeine fix. Soon enough, they got talking.

The boy was Farhad Bomanjee, KGC’s founder and owner, and he was having meetings with his architect about building a lovely little 18-seater coffee shop in Kala Ghoda’s arts and business precinct. Not long after, Fram found himself sitting on a sill at Ropewalk Lane, sipping on a hot beverage. 

Sixteen years later, KGC has grown; it can now seat nearly 100 people across the front cafe, the main dining room, and a wine bar at the back. Fram, too, has more people in tow. Fram’s wife, Binaifer (or Bini), and their 14-year-old son, Jehan, often join him at KGC. In fact, the couple visits KGC every weekday, and nearly every weekend—unless they’re travelling. 

It’s the sort of place where they’ve made some of their closest friends-like-family. And fine-tuned their favourite dishes (you can ask for akuri the way Fram likes it). It’s where they celebrate birthdays as well as career ups and downs.

Meet Framroz, Binaifer, and Jehan Langrana, Kala Ghoda Cafe’s super regulars. 

How long have you been going to KGC?

Framroz: Since the day it opened.

So, since 2009... 

Framroz: I’ve been in this precinct for about 30 to 35 years, since I was 15. I’d come to my dad’s office from college. For the first 25 years, there was absolutely nothing here. No restaurants, no cafes, just stockbrokers and hardware shops. There were maybe two Udupi restaurants, Modern and Dwarka, and a couple of Irani places, like Military and Wayside Inn. Coffee culture didn’t exist then. When we went out, it was Shamiana or The Harbour Bar. And then, suddenly, this new cafe opened up, and the relationship started.

Binaifer: Farhad’s mother used to sell garden furniture here before. His mum is also a fabulous cook, and she makes amazing cakes, so all these [dishes at KGC] are most likely her recipes.

Framroz: A testament to KGC is its longevity. It’s one thing to open a cafe, another to sustain it for 16 years. It is about Farhad’s attention to quality and dedication to serve the best. There is no grease on the menu. 

Binaifer: And that’s why we can afford to eat it, every day, day in, day out. It’s like home, and we trust the effort put in to make sure that it’s clean.

Binaifer told me earlier that you have made friends for life here. 

Framroz: The greatest part about KGC is what it has done for us and for our lives—it’s the people we’ve met here. For the first eight years, it was just this section [he says pointing to the downstairs area of the street-facing white-walled front room of the cafe], a 12-seater space serving coffee and cakes. We had to invariably share a table. If a larger group came in and I was on a table for three, the manager would say, “Sir, can you just move? Can you share the table with the other single person there?” I called it the Kala Ghoda Shuffle. 

In sharing , we’d end up talking. So, we formed bonds with people that we barely knew, literally strangers. And so, we’ve met the most wonderful people, friends that we now can’t live without, people we would never have known otherwise. 

So, there were lots of regulars then?

Framroz: There still are lots of regulars from that first year, about 30 or 40 of us.

Binaifer: We have a WhatsApp group called Coffee Mates. At 7:30 in the morning, the first question on it is “Coffee anyone?”. We all work or live in this area. And we are all addicted to the coffee and the crisp toast-butter. We celebrate birthdays here, and the breakfast for that day is on that person.

When we met, some of us had little kids. Now these kids are in university.

Framroz: They [the kids] would call Anthony [the server], take his notepad, tear pages, do drawings, make them into a ball, and throw it back to at him.

Binaifer: I’ve been bringing Jehan here since he was three months old. We would bring cake for the staff on his birthday. He’s even come here to intern for a few days, to take orders. He literally gets away with anything here.

Jehan: It’s like a second home to me. Now with more schoolwork, I come here on weekends. I love the food, I love this place. I was about 11 when I started to intern here. What I learned was how to use the tablet, take orders, hold the tray properly, serve dishes, and even wash them in the kitchen.

Binaifer: The families [the KGC super regulars] meet every Saturday or Sunday.

Framroz: KGC attracts a very like-minded crowd—happy, energetic, easy to talk to, entrepreneurs, professionals. A non-pretentious crowd that comes here for some downtime.

Binaifer: Another thing is that it’s much more reasonable than everything else around. Even the coffee. The regulars are mostly lawyers or people in finance and people in the fashion and jewellery industry, because there are so many stores here now. 

What’s your regular order? 

Binaifer: I love their salads, especially the Chef’s Salad. And thank god they have half portions.

Jehan: For me it’s the special scrambled eggs with cheese and chilli, or the chicken cheese salad sandwich in a ragi wrap. The key is to tell them to shred the chicken and put less chicken. I like their banana flour waffles with chocolate sauce too. 

Framroz: I love their oatmeal pancakes. For lunch, I like the Goan fish curry or the French onion chicken. For coffee, a macchiato or a dry cappuccino.

Tell me more about what KGC means to you. 

Binaifer: A friend once summed up how much I spend a year on my daily coffee at KGC. I said I don’t care. This is my time. I meet friends, we talk—it’s one of the highlights of my day, the nice part of my day. We know what’s happening in each other’s lives. You can’t quantify that.