Udai Pinnali, CEO, Aditya Birla New Age Hospitality
Mumbai: Aditya Birla Group plans to scale up its hospitality footprint with restaurant openings in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, besides expanding in new formats like cafes and patisseries in this fiscal.The group ventured into hospitality and dining space in 2021 with launch of member’s only club Jolie’s. Two years later, it acquired KA hospitality adding four restaurant brands in its fold.At present most of its business is concentrated in Mumbai and Delhi and now is targeting South India for its next phase of expansion.New Markets“We are scaling our established premium restaurant brands into new markets. We are also broadening our portfolio by introducing new formats that cater to evolving consumer lifestyles,” Udai Pinnali, Chief Executive Officer, Aditya Birla New Age Hospitality (ABNAH) told businessline on the sidelines of Restaurant India conference.He added that the company is evaluating Bengaluru and Hyderabad markets for expansion.Pinnali said company’s business remains resilient. “Over the past couple of months we have not seen any material softening in consumer demand and our average ticket sizes have remained stable,” he said.Until last year, it’s Italian restaurant Cin Cin was present only in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). Two more Cin Cin outlets have opened in Mumbai and Delhi. Similarly it’s Thai restaurant brand Nara Thai too has expanded beyond BKC to Worli in Central Mumbai and Delhi.Using TechnologyIn February ABNAH announced plans to bring Danish cafe brand Joe & The Juice to India. Last month it launched its own cafe brand In Good Co in New Delhi’s Greater Kailash area.“One of defining pillars of In Good Co cafe is to create a sense of neighbourhood familiarity where guests feel recognised, remembered and welcomed each time they visit. We have worked with our partners to develop an analytics tool which enables our baristas to recommend F&B options in real time to customers based on their past orders,” Pinnali said.ABNAH is also using technology to improve its inventory management. This could prove useful as restaurants like many other businesses face disruptions due to heavy rains. “We are increasingly seeing that monsoons neither start or end on time. What you can do is to try and build models with your supply chain partners so that you manage inventory intelligently. We are also doing AI pilots and looking at using technology for demand forecasting and supply chains,” he said.Published on July 10, 2026
