Why the iconic Tea Centre at Churchgate has been shut for months

A file photo of tenor Anando Mukherjee entertaining guests

Churchgate's crazy commercial pace slows down instantly when you step into Resham Bhavan, a building that houses government offices and the elegant FE Dinshaw Commercial & Financial Refrence Library. On the ground floor, inside Tea Centre - once a refuge of the 'intellectual' - a solitary yellow light glows in the dark.

Round tables that served chai and samosas when guests tinkled a bell to flag a waiter, are gathered in a corner. The café, resurrected by adman and hospitality entrepreneur Prahlad Kakar in the late 1990s, has been shut for months although staffers you meet claim it's under renovation.

Cafe's former handlers Prahlad Kakar and Deepak Purohit

While a Tea Board employee said it was "under renovation", a visit to the Art Deco building that stands opposite Gaylord, showed no construction activity. A security guard at the building said, "there has been no work on here for months".

Guarded response
Tea Board India refused to elaborate on the goings on, with officials saying they were not authorised to speak. BP Yadav, Mumbai-based Tea Bo­a­rd India development officer, directed us to officials at the Kolkata headquarters, but they too refused to comment; as did Amaya Das, deputy chairman of Tea Board India. Chairman Santosh Sarangi was not available to speak to mid-day.

According to new reports from January 2011, the building built in the 1960s, its ownership rights and the top floor that was until then occupied by SASMIRA (Synthetic and Art Silk Mills' Research Association) were bought for R27.63 crore in October 2010 by real estate major DB Realty. According to a spokesperson from the realty firm, Tea Board India which has 40 years more of its 90-year lease left violated the terms of tenancy.

Ex-handlers in the dark
Adman and hospitality entrepreneur Kakar, who was roped in by the Board to renovate the café, said he didn't know of the shuttering. "It [the shutdown] is a tragedy. We revamped it from the khandar (ruins) that it was. An intrepid official from Tea Board thought it was not doing anything with it. So, he and some others went looking for somebody to revamp it. I think they went to Jiggs Kalra, but came to me to help change it. We (Kak­ar and team) thought, 'Chalo, karte hain. It will be fun.'"

Kakar recalled that the interiors were done on a shoestring budget. "Guess what we discovered when we ripped the linoleum from the floor? Pure Burma teak. It was so idiotic that someone had covered it up." With a new look came a new menu. "I am married into a tea family; my in-laws are tea plantation owners, and I grew up in Dehradun, so I know my teas," Kakar said. "We served the best finger chips in town. We added a piano and put little bells on tables so guests could flag a waiter with a tinkle."

He, however, fell out with Tea Board. "The end was acrimonious. There were financial issues. The Board also thought I was becoming more popular; the media started calling it Prahlad Kakar's Tea Centre. I am not surprised it has shut. You need to have a passion for food to run such places," said the maverick.

The café was then run by former Doordarshan and Star TV chief R Basu. After him, stepped in Deepak Purohit, proprietor of Tea Centre's neighbour, Indian Summer restaurant. "I won a tender to manage the place and began work in October 2008. I was a consultant to Tea Board India and managed the café on its behalf," said Purohit. Purohit's contract ended in 2015. "I haven't seen any activity in a year. Tea Centre was iconic and it brought a balance to a city engulfed by the coffee boom."

Not ready to say bye
When informed of the closure, loyalists were befuddled. Sunil Merchant, Chairman of Western India Automobile Association's Motor Driving School, housed in the adjacent building, said, "Time seemed to stop there. Westerners loved it too. The food was easy on the pocket. It's tragic if it has shut forever. A part of Mumbai will be gone; it was for the artsy, kurta-pyjama-jhola type."

For Churchgate's urban renewal activist Nayana Kathpalia, it is the "death of tradition". "I remember it as a place that served simple fare. Then, some private agencies did wonders to the place. We had breakfast meetings there and I saw the place evolve," she said. Theatre director Alyque Padamsee brainstormed for ideas for several plays at one of the café's tables. "Tea Centre was a refuge of the intellectual. An arts and culture patron must try and keep it alive," he suggested.