{"id":14093,"date":"2018-02-15T07:41:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-15T07:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/?p=14093"},"modified":"2023-08-24T17:16:06","modified_gmt":"2023-08-24T11:46:06","slug":"cheelizza-animesh-lodha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/foodpreneurs\/cheelizza-animesh-lodha.html","title":{"rendered":"“We Love Competition”: Cheelizza Wants to Defeat Domino’s and Pizza Hut On their Turf"},"content":{"rendered":"

At a time when not only customers but also investors\u2019 community seem to be shying away from Italian towards more exotic cuisines such as Mexican and Lebanese, Cheelizza has placed its bets on serving Indian pizza. Started in 2013, the only 100% vegetarian pizzeria chain is currently having four outlets in the financial capital of the country, Mumbai. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Led by Animesh Lodha, a Chartered Accountant by qualification but a foodie at heart, the chain has ambitious dreams of taking on Domino\u2019s and Pizza Hut and dethrone them from being the first choice of pizza lovers. Even as the outlets serve only purely vegetarian food, the team is betting on the quality and inexpensive pricing to play its part and make the restaurant stand out.<\/span><\/p>\n

How Animesh Lodha of Cheelizza Is Creating a Growing Pizza Outlet Chain\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

We, at The Restaurant Times, engaged in a candid conversation with Animesh Lodha, the man who has been burning the midnight oil since 2013 to reach a milestone that no one could imagine for an Indian pizza brand. He spoke freely about his initial struggles, expansion plans, especially about his decisions to open outlets right around their competitor\u2019s locations. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHailing from a small town of Rajasthan, I came to Mumbai with big dreams but without any plan. I completed my Chartered Accountancy course and worked as an Investment Banker in \u00a0Edelweiss for two years. However, my love for food made it happen,\u201d he said adding that the three co-founders wanted to come up with something which could have a mass appeal while still having top-notch quality.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fighting for Location<\/strong><\/h3>\n

However, it\u2019s not just about the quality when it comes to making a food chain successful. If one wants to provide customers a good dining experience, location becomes very important and Lodha believes that food industry basically runs on location more than anything else. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRestaurant is a location-specific business. Location is one of the key factors in opening a restaurant,\u201d he said. \u201cThe first thing we look for is competition. We go in areas where there are a lot of food brands, we love competition. We believe competition is the best thing that can help you grow. Wherever there are options to eat, people from nearby areas will visit \u00a0that place out of curiosity and that\u2019s all you need, you just want people to come and see you once.<\/strong>\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Even though location can bring in customers, the onus is on the restaurant and its services to retain them and make them hook to your brand. Undoubtedly, Cheelizza has a slightly different strategy which not only focusses on its pizza but also has an ever-growing side menu which doesn\u2019t cannibalize sales instead, improves the average order value. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have pizza, pasta, garlic bread. Not only that, we have a rich variety of rice (in 4-5 varieties) to satiate your hunger. We introduced nachos and mocktails, for which we got a tremendous response. Last but not the least, \u00a0we have garlic bread platters and desserts to sooth your sweet tooth cravings.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"animesh<\/p>\n

Talking about the company\u2019s expansion, the first outlet outside Maharashtra to be opened in the next few days, shall be in Rajkot (Gujarat). Two more outlets will open in Mumbai with a carpet area of more than 1,000 square feet each. By the end of this year, Cheelizza will have six new outlets taking the total count to 10. At the same time, after struggling in the first few years, the chain has doubled its sales in the last two years. <\/span><\/p>\n

While it eyes fast growth in the future to take on Domino\u2019s and Pizza Hut, the chain has burnt its hands with the franchise model early on in its lifetime and doesn\u2019t plan to go back to it ever again. <\/span><\/p>\n

Lodha further added that franchisees may not have the same passion or value systems for the company as its owners and that might lead to them doing it just for the money and that\u2019s a bad way for a company to grow because people could start cutting corners just to make extra bucks. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s only about capital, then why don\u2019t you go slow and grow. Then you show your profitability to investors and expand with their money. We don\u2019t want any of our outlets to shut after opening. That\u2019s why we are very cautious when it comes to opening new outlets,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Animesh<\/p>\n

Personal Costs of Doing Business<\/strong><\/h3>\n

However, Animesh Lodha didn\u2019t reach here just like that. The path to even starting the restaurant was full of challenges and the first few years after starting up were equally hard which took a toll on his personal life too. <\/span><\/p>\n

Lodha said that his family didn\u2019t support him at all when he quit his job and kept asking him to get a steady job. Sticking to his guns, however, Lodha kept going and made his dream come true by starting the chain through a small restaurant in Kandivali, a small suburb, in Mumbai which exists even today and remains the best selling outlet of the chain. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI had to borrow a lot of money with no repayment plan. The only hope was that the business will do well and it will become better. From 2013-2015, I was literally broke for almost every day of my life forcing me to cut down my personal expenses to a bare minimum. It was indeed tough and discouraging at first but I kept my spirits high in times of such adversity.. I wouldn\u2019t know what to do, where to go and whom to ask for help,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/p>\n

These were not the only troubles that the pizzeria chain faced in its initial years. High rates of attrition in the restaurant industry came to haunt Cheelizza too as its chefs and staff kept leaving in the first two years of its operations. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know how to retain staff as people were quitting. In outlet kitchen, delivery boys, etc, attrition remains high across the industry. International brands like Starbucks offered handsome salaries to employees along with lucrative employee reward programmes,”<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, he found a solution only after three years of being in the business. It involved changing the value system and treating all levels of staff as equals and giving them a say in the operations of the chain. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI believed that hire and fire is a good policy but no, these things really matter a lot because they impact your business directly. Such decisions shape the future of an organization. And our industry, being highly people and relationship-oriented, a different approach had become inevitable. The treatment of my staff should be such that they feel like they are an integral part of the whole organization,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/p>\n

Apart from this, the staff got other perks as well such as free movie tickets every month at PVR, rewards in cash and kind for the best employee, the best delivery person whose pictures are now displayed on the walls of the outlets. All such initiatives brought about a sense of ownership and team bonding among everyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Using Technology to Do Smart Marketing<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Even though it seems like the chain is on track to challenge the giants in the industry, it didn\u2019t exactly have a smooth ride. Lodha admitted that he committed a grave mistake in the beginning of his business by assuming that he didn\u2019t need technology and that he could take care of everything through his Excel sheets. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cRight now, our systems are end-to-end automated. Right from the time a customer places an order, till the time a marketing SMS is sent to him, we have automation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Animesh<\/p>\n

He detailed about another use of his automation system that allows them to bring in customers: \u201cWe have a bot based marketing system where a bot decides what a customer prefers, how much he spends on average, how many times he visits our outlet and so on. Based on that, the bot will prepare an SMS and send it without my intervention. This is the kind of automation that I had to bring in after my struggle.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Lodha said that the chain has not invested even a reasonable amount in marketing and branding so far and all the growth is purely organic and word of mouth so far. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, our budget is very limited so anything we do, we have to be very prudent with our resources. What I have been doing so far is sending customized SMS to my audience \u2013 those people who are coming to me, This exercise is being done after a careful and detailed analysis of the data collected by observing their food habits and order history. This leads to a highly strong and loyal customer base thereby leading to high retention rate,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/p>\n

The chain, however, still does newspaper inserts twice or thrice a month along with social media marketing and an in-house loyalty programme that gives points to a customer on every order. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to conclude by saying that we have not even scratched the tip of the iceberg, but very soon a day will arrive when Cheelizza will be the market leader and a household name whenever someone will think about Pizza\u2026.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a time when not only customers but also investors\u2019 community seem to be shying away from Italian towards more exotic cuisines such as Mexican and Lebanese, Cheelizza has placed its bets on serving Indian pizza. Started in 2013, the only 100% vegetarian pizzeria chain is currently having four outlets in the financial capital of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":14140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[810],"tags":[1106,369],"yoast_head":"\n"We Love Competition": Cheelizza Wants to Defeat Domino's and Pizza Hut On their Turf<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How Animesh Lodha, CEO of Cheelizza pizza created a successful pizza outlet chain despite not being from the hospitality background! Read his story.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/foodpreneurs\/cheelizza-animesh-lodha.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""We Love Competition": Cheelizza Wants to Defeat Domino's and Pizza Hut On their Turf\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How Animesh Lodha, CEO of Cheelizza pizza created a successful pizza outlet chain despite not being from the hospitality background! Read his story.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/foodpreneurs\/cheelizza-animesh-lodha.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Restaurant Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheRestaurantTimes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-02-15T07:41:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-08-24T11:46:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Animesh-Lodha-Cheelizza.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"741\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"486\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Prachi Ahuja\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Prachi Ahuja\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/foodpreneurs\/cheelizza-animesh-lodha.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/foodpreneurs\/cheelizza-animesh-lodha.html\",\"name\":\"\\\"We Love Competition\\\": Cheelizza Wants to Defeat Domino's and Pizza Hut On their Turf\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-02-15T07:41:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-08-24T11:46:06+00:00\",\"description\":\"How Animesh Lodha, CEO of Cheelizza pizza created a successful pizza outlet chain despite not being from the hospitality background! Read his story.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/foodpreneurs\/cheelizza-animesh-lodha.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/foodpreneurs\/cheelizza-animesh-lodha.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/foodpreneurs\/cheelizza-animesh-lodha.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"“We Love Competition”: Cheelizza Wants to Defeat Domino’s and Pizza Hut On their Turf\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/\",\"name\":\"The Restaurant Times\",\"description\":\"By Posist\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Restaurant Times\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/cropped-trt-logo.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/cropped-trt-logo.jpg\",\"width\":600,\"height\":160,\"caption\":\"The Restaurant Times\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheRestaurantTimes\/\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"We Love Competition\": Cheelizza Wants to Defeat Domino's and Pizza Hut On their Turf","description":"How Animesh Lodha, CEO of Cheelizza pizza created a successful pizza outlet chain despite not being from the hospitality background! Read his story.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/foodpreneurs\/cheelizza-animesh-lodha.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"We Love Competition\": Cheelizza Wants to Defeat Domino's and Pizza Hut On their Turf","og_description":"How Animesh Lodha, CEO of Cheelizza pizza created a successful pizza outlet chain despite not being from the hospitality background! Read his story.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/foodpreneurs\/cheelizza-animesh-lodha.html","og_site_name":"The Restaurant Times","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheRestaurantTimes\/","article_published_time":"2018-02-15T07:41:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-08-24T11:46:06+00:00","og_image":[{"width":741,"height":486,"url":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Animesh-Lodha-Cheelizza.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Prachi Ahuja","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Prachi Ahuja","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/foodpreneurs\/cheelizza-animesh-lodha.html","url":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/foodpreneurs\/cheelizza-animesh-lodha.html","name":"\"We Love Competition\": Cheelizza Wants to Defeat Domino's and Pizza Hut On their Turf","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-02-15T07:41:00+00:00","dateModified":"2023-08-24T11:46:06+00:00","description":"How Animesh Lodha, CEO of Cheelizza pizza created a successful pizza outlet chain despite not being from the hospitality background! Read his story.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/foodpreneurs\/cheelizza-animesh-lodha.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/foodpreneurs\/cheelizza-animesh-lodha.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/foodpreneurs\/cheelizza-animesh-lodha.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"“We Love Competition”: Cheelizza Wants to Defeat Domino’s and Pizza Hut On their Turf"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/","name":"The Restaurant Times","description":"By Posist","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/#organization","name":"The Restaurant Times","url":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/cropped-trt-logo.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/cropped-trt-logo.jpg","width":600,"height":160,"caption":"The Restaurant Times"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheRestaurantTimes\/"]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14093"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19420,"href":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14093\/revisions\/19420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.posist.com\/restaurant-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}