Theatre Road has been waking up to the aroma of freshly fried farsan (savoury snacks) for over three decades. Now, the morning air also carries a more subtle and delicate fragrance of steamed delicacies.
The inviting whiff leads to 25/1, Shakespeare Sarani Road, home to the recently opened third store of Kolkata’s favourite Gujarati snack shop, AnnaRas.
The ladle passes on
When cousins Bipin Naygandhi and Manoj Gokul Gandhi set up AnnaRas on Theatre Road in 1989, they wished to share the delectable dishes prepared at their home with the outside world. The Theatre Road store, and an earlier one in Bhowanipore, gradually made Gujarati items like thepla, gathiya and khandvi — staples on the city’s snacks menu.
But they always longed to do more. It is these dreams that two young women of the Naygandhi family sought to fulfil with AnnaRas V3.0
“Dad (Bipin) had huge plans for the store, one of them being a live thepla counter. We had been catering live theplas for The Gujarat Club for years, and the overwhelming response convinced him that emulating the model at the store would add to the customer experience. But our 190 sq ft-size footprint prevented him from implementing the plan,” said 31-year-old Akanksha Naygandhi.
The highlight of the new store is a live counter, where customers can watch their theplas, parathas or dahi vadas being made fresh
Sister Drishti Naygandhi, 28, too, remembers witnessing their parents’ passion for the business. “As a child, I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and walk into the kitchen to find my dad laying out breads and mom (Bharti Naygandhi) sampling different chutneys,” Drishti said. “Every Diwali, Dad would teach us how to pack mithai boxes and tie ribbons.” AnnaRas, for the Naygandhis, was not just a family business, but a family member.
The sisters completed their education at The Frank Anthony Public School, followed by St. Xavier’s College. After graduation, Akanksha moved to Hyderabad to take on a role in data research, while Drishti started a career in marketing at Bangalore. But the attachment remained in their hearts and they returned to drive the business into a new era in 2022 and 2024, respectively. “While leaving school, my teachers asked me what I wanted to do next. Even as a 17-year-old, I knew my calling was AnnaRas,” Akanksha said. Drishti adds, “We had our interests, but the drive for this was unmatched.”
A new home
The new store also brings in steamed snacks like moong dhokla, sev khamani and muthiya
The first challenge they took on was building a digital presence. “Our customers love carrying our food not only to different cities, but also to different countries. Whenever I get something from another city, the first thing I do is to look up the brand. But I realised that AnnaRas didn’t have that,” says Akanksha.
After an underwhelming stint with a website in March 2023, the team decided to focus on Instagram. The idea was to go beyond sharing offers and updates, and communicate transparently with customers. “Our Instagram became a place where we could share our journey and core values with people,” she adds. The follower count kept growing, with many of the store’s reels around its quirky staff and authentic recipes going viral. “Our next goal is to get the website right, so that we can directly sell to customers,” she adds.
But their first big task was to locate a suitable address for a new store. This sparked an intense debate, with the family scouting locations not only around Park Street, but in Salt Lake’s bustling Swimming Pool area, too. Finally, they zeroed in on a space.
AnnaRas 3.0 opened its doors on February 26
Terms were agreed upon and documents readied. But on the very day that the token amount was to be handed over, the space right opposite the existing AnnaRas shop became vacant. The family was caught in a dilemma over whether to select a larger space in a new location or settle for a smaller space in a known neighbourhood? What about the risk of two stores by the same brand eating into each other’s sales? These were the questions on everyone’s minds as an urgent meeting was called to decide on the way forward. The Shakespeare Sarani address, opposite to the existing shop, was chosen with absolute consensus.
Location finalised, the sisters were now faced with an even more complex question — how to craft a unique experience for the stores, while ensuring that both retained the brand’s essence? “In the end, we decided to keep the fried items at our old store, and serve fresh steamed items at the new one,” Drishti said.
The sisters also wanted to provide a more plush experience at the new store and decided to make it an air-conditioned space where guests could come in, watch their food being prepared and enjoy it inside the store itself.
The first priority was to make their father’s dream of serving fresh theplas come true. AnnaRas’s tryst with theplas had started in the Naygandhi kitchen in 2012. “A lady named Lakshmi didi would come home and mom would train her in the art of making theplas,” Drishti recalled. As the demand for theplas soared, Lakshmi needed help. “People tend to perceive theplas as a travel item, but we Gujaratis know how great it tastes when served hot with homemade curd, curd and chhunda (a sweet pickle),” she said. And that is how the thepla combo became one of the first items on the AnnaRas 3.0 menu.
The father’s wish having been taken care of, it was now the turn of the sisters to relive their childhood. Having grown up eating alu and paneer paratha at home every week, they wanted to introduce a similar homely variant at the live counter. Easier said than done, what followed was a three-week taste test, where Akansha and Drishti ate the parathas in both meals every day to ensure that the recipe was perfect. “By the end, we had lost all objectivity in our taste,” said Drishti. Akanksha chuckled, “It started becoming like wine tasting, but for parathas!”
The kitchen was also pushed to the limit for Moong Dhokla, which was also perfected. The steamed snack menu gradually grew longer, with the addition of Sev Khamani, Upma and Masala Dhokla.
A big help turned out to be the sisters’ maternal grandparents, who were visiting from Gujarat. “Our nani single-handedly brought Undhiyu to AnnaRas for the first time!” Akanksha beamed. Their parents’ love for Dahi Vada made it the latest addition to the menu.
The renovations started in November and went on till February. “For the first two weeks, we kept wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. It was like birthing a baby,” Drishti said. But slowly things fell into place. Akanksha took on all the back-end duties, including purchase and accounting. Drishti started managing the customer-facing roles like operations, resource management and quality control. Finally, after four months of planning, tasting and hard work, AnnaRas 3.0 opened its doors on February 26.
‘From our home to yours’
The homely taste of every item on the AnnaRas menu struck an instant chord with customers. To maintain authenticity, the Naygandhis have engaged their in-house cook at the shop. The curd for the theplas and parathas comes directly from the home kitchen, while Bharti personally makes the chhunda. “Dad’s mantra has always been to share something you like with the world. Whenever anything nice is made at home for the first time, his first question is, ‘Customer ko kab khila rahe hai?’” laughs Drishti. This has also led to the brand’s new tagline, ‘From our home to yours.’”
When AnnaRas
introduced theplas on the menu, the kitchen would be making 500 every
day. In 2022, Bipin had told My Kolkata that they were selling 1,000 theplas
daily. Today, his daughters are proud to share that the number has crossed 2,000!
“Dad always says, ‘Hot snacks go straight to the heart.’ This has been our way
of bonding with customers. At this point, I can’t tell if people walking into
the store are my customers or friends,” Akanksha said.
A thorough family affair, Team AnnaRas comprises (L-R) Drishti, Manoj, Bharti, Bipin and Akanksha
While the footfall continues to rise, the sisters are taking it one day at a time. They still have big plans that they want to implement going forward, including the introduction of a beverage to go with the live items, and many more authentic Gujarati dishes. “Each new item takes meticulous planning, from sourcing to storage to serving. It is like a research project,” Akanksha said.
But what keeps the new store in line with the AnnaRas brand isn’t just the lip-smacking taste or high-quality ingredients but the ethos. In Drishti’s words, “We don’t think of the new shop as an ‘expansion’. It is an extension of our desire to serve you the items we have always wanted.”
