This ‘Chocolate boy’ began out with Rs five lakh and constructed a Rs 19 crore turnover commercial enterprise.

In 2013, Vinayak Lohokare, who became then simply 24 years old, began his first outlet of Café Chocolicious with a funding of Rs five lakh from a three hundred sq feet rented area in Pune. Managing the hole with a team of workers throughout the daytime, and spending the after workplace hours at the hole until past due night, the mechanical engineering graduate from MIT, Pune, determined to stop his process multiple years later endorsed via way of means of his spouse and started out to attention on his commercial enterprise complete time.

In 2013, Vinayak Lohokare, who was then simply twenty-four years old, started his 1st outlet of restaurant Chocolicious with an investment of Rs five, 100000 from a three hundred square measure rented house in Pune. Managing the outlet with two workers throughout the daytime, and defragment when workplace hours at the outlet until late night, the technology graduate from MIT, Pune, set to quit his job a few years later inspired by his better half and started to specialize in his business full time.

Today, Chocolicious has seventy franchise retailers settled in Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Gujarat, with an accumulative turnover of Rs fifteen crore.

He has conjointly launched Chicken Affair, an eatery chain with ten outlets and a current turnover of Rs four crore. We tend to were 3 siblings,” he says, sharing details concerning his family and early childhood. He worked in a very semi-private sugar manufacturing plant planning its machines for thirty years.

We tend couldn't pay a lot for an honest quality cup of low or delicious snacks throughout my college days in Pune. Not surprisingly, he started his 1st café in 2013 at Akurdi, Pune, around a school hub. However, diversifying his career from an engineering job to a food business was a large challenge. Vinayak finished his technology in 2010 and got employment through school placement within Continental Automotive, a German company producing motorcar spare elements in Pune.

So, after I got the chance to figure for either the technical or the industrial departments of the company, I opted for the latter,” informs Vinayak. When a stint at Gurgaon, he was announced in Bengaluru for a year and so got a transfer to Pune. I used to be not into a lot of coming together with my colleagues or hobnobbing with my seniors in the workplace,” says Vinayak narrating his business story.

2 years into my job, I used to be obtaining restless to start out with one thing of my own. “After office hours, in my free time, I started to frolic with the thought of beginning a restaurant for faculty students." When in the office, he worked at the café from the evening until late at night. Inside the primary few months, we tend to were doing Rs 10,000 value sales per day,” says Vinayak.

He conjointly got married to his 2 years girlfriend Sharmilee Taramal, a designer by profession. “I wished to expand my business, however, I required to offer additional of my time. He set to require the plunge and quit his job to specialize in the business. "With 5 years of job expertise beneath my belt, I used to be assured of going back to my job just in case the venture failed to work. My wife was conjointly conducive to her financial gain for the family. I took a calculated risk," says Vinayak.

Vinayak set to require the franchise route for growth and gave away his 1st restaurant at Akurdi as a franchise in 2016. Around three hundred individuals work in these outlets. “My wife, who is AN designer and co-founder of the company, takes care of the inside style of the outlets. Vinayak’s company charges a one-time franchise fee that ranges from Rs 3.5 to 4 Lakhs per outlet.

Vinayak added another complete referred to as Chicken Affair to his food chain business. It started within the pre-pandemic year. The value varies at Chicken Affair is the same as Chocolicious. Once asked if his love for chocolate and desserts drives his entrepreneurial zeal, Vinayak says, “I was ne'er a chocolate person.

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