PRITHVI CAFÉ, Coffee Shop Reborn
How does one re-energise the soul of an existing iconic space? And help to reintroduce the notion of the individual coffee shop, given to intellectual chatter, laid-back living and an enjoyment of the slow life? Where theatre and the arts are momentous? Especially in this age of coffee shop chains and hurried living? How does one save a magical space from going down, under the burden of burgeoning modernity?

Sanjna Kapoor’s Prithvi Café is as iconic a venue as you can discover in Mumbai. A hub of theatre, where artistes’ careers are made and broken, where the talk is always artistic to the aroma of Irish coffee with its squiggle of orange peel. “When Sanjna asked us to manage this magical space, we just jumped at it,” says Riyaaz Amlani, CEO, Impresario Entertainment and Hospitality, whose Salt Water Grill, also utilised to full potential an amazing seaside location. A spruce up, the addition of a pavilion, more tables and streetside cuisine, converted the rundown garden back into the bustling café it had been. “Prithvi Café has for the longest time held together the cultural fabric of Mumbai, so as a complementary attitude, we introduced Mumbai’s street gastronomy which is of as much cultural relevance,” says Amlani. And so we have the coffee shop reborn in an atmosphere where artistes and other regular customers can mingle comfortably together.

Sanjna Kapoor, as much privy to her own sense of style in lungi and kurta, as the Prithvi Café, maintains, “I believe any cultural venue needs a watering hole. An adda is essential to allow people to gup, mingle and exchange ideas. So the Prithvi Café is intrinsic to our goal in strengthening the cultural fabric of our city. What is super is that Impresario and Riyaaz, with its wide range of fooderies, seem to get this idea and are able to add huge value to the creation of this theatrical watering hole.”