Spykar Lifestyles to launch café

Apparel makers, Spykar are now venturing into cafes. The first Café Spykar will open its doors next week at Nirmal Lifestyle, a mall in Mumbai. “The cafes are a way for Spykar to connect to its target audience, the youth,” says Sanjay Vakharia, Director, Spykar Lifestyles.

“Anything that connects with the youth Spykar feels it can get into it,” Vakharia says. He sees venturing into cafes as a serious business effort “Eventually the whole exercise would be to promote the brand.”

Café Spykar will not be in competition with Barista or Cafe Coffee Day the other well-known coffee chains in India. For one, Café Spykar will be far lesser and fewer in numbers and it is not one of those specialty coffee shops which can be considered a lifestyle brand. “The cafes will have a bit of the lifestyle element that the brand Spykar endorses. We are less about coffee and more about ambience and how people would feel in such a place,” Vakharia says. The cafes will be pepped-up places and the look and feel will be vibrant. The brand has invested Rs 22 lakh in the first café. Depending on the response, more such cafes will be opened.
At the moment Spykar is one of the largest distributed brands in India and is available in over 140 cities across India. It offers bottom wear, jackets, shirts, T-shirts.

Meanwhile, the brand is also planning to expand their retail presence across India. “By the end of April 2011, we plan to expand to 275 stores.” Vakharia says. Today, they have a total of 205 stores. “Exclusive brand outlets are 55 per cent of my business and large formats are 25 per cent. The rest are multi brand outlets” he says.  The company plans to invest Rs 30 crores in the coming year. By April 2011, they are looking at generating Rs 325 crore as revenue.