Former restaurant manager Gopal Kirkee hopes to recreate service, ambience and food of German Bakery in his own venture
Former restaurant manager Gopal Kirkee hopes to recreate service, ambience and food of German Bakery in his own venture
It's been almost a year since the German Bakery blast claimed innocent lives and left a scar in the minds of the injured and their families. Also trying to come to terms with the tragedy is the bakery's former manager Gopal Kirkee.
|
| Coming to grips: Former manager of German Bakery is looking out for a place to start his own restaurant. Pic/Debarati Palit |
The man is currently looking for a place to start a bakery of his own and he knows the kind of place he wants.
"The blast has changed my life. All these years I was flying high in the sky and had everything I wanted but after the blast I have to start from the scratch," he said.
However, that has not stopped him from wanting to build a place similar to the old bakery.
Kirkee wants to build a place which will offer people the same taste, quality, service and ambience that the German Bakery provided.
Expressing his scepticism about the new bakery, he said: "They want to build something plush because they are spending a lot of money on the interiors. They don't know what the foreign crowd likes or why the people were so inclined towards the bakery. As I have worked in it for many years, I know what they want. Foreigners do not want closed places with television sets. They want a quiet place and I am searching for a place which will have lots of greenery and also the same healthy food items."
He said he missed the nutritious food of the German Bakery the most.
"I used to love the food as I am health conscious. It was a tough job maintaining the quality of food.
Foreigners fall ill easily, so we had to be careful," Kirkee said.
But it's not just the food that he misses, but also interacting with the old people who visited the bakery regularly.
Meeting point"We used to know people by their names; many would come to discuss their ideas, dream, and ambitions. It was a meeting point not only for foreigners but also students. We used to interact with them, joke with them and discuss the burning issues," he said.u00a0
The bakery was a second home for him, as he spent more hours there. He said he still dreamt of the bakery and the people who were killed in the blast.
