‘Fab Cafe’ a curious and cozy place

Fab cafe is a small but comfortable cafe close that I like. Its situated a few steps below the footpath of a busy main road. Its made of three square areas. An entrance to an outdoor seating area, one square for non smoking, another outdoor area for people who’d like to smoke and eat. The last square is made of a small indoor room, with air conditioning.

Outdoors, the seating has wooden tables and small benches for chairs. Some of the tables have swings for chairs. The outdoors is filled with pots of plants, between tables and also a wall of plants, which serves as a very nice background to take pictures.

Indoors, the seating has wooden tables, with glass tabletops, and chairs to sit on and a few tables that are next to a wall have benches again.

A man who appears to be the owner of the cafe, can be seen constantly and calmly, but quickly moving about taking orders and serving food. He’s not alone though, the cafe has a couple of waiters as well.

The room is quite small , and the tables are cleverly placed. Four at each corner and a couple more at the edges, and one table at the center. This setup makes it easy for him to navigate in the small room.

The choice of cutlery — ceramic plates and bowls are all in particular shapes and sizes which make them very easy to eat from. I always get the feeling that the cutlery at this cafe somehow makes the customer not make a lot of mess at the table.

It is customary in fab cafe to do a couple of things a certain way, and it also has certain features —

• The cafe has a few paper napkin holders, but they are never placed on the tables. But instead, they are brought and kept at the table after an order is taken, after a few minutes. I love this act as it keeps the customer patient by giving this impression of anticipating food any moment.
• Once the customers at a table leave, the owner promptly clears the table and then, brings a liquid cleaner and sprays the glass top with it and uses a cloth to wipe the table. The tables are small squares themselves, and hence they can be cleaned in a jiffy.
• The menu has not more than 40 items to choose from. Now if you know anything about running cafes, you’ll know a menu can make or break a cafe. The food items in the menu are well thought out. Its got fun and interesting starters, to main course, deserts, beverages and milkshakes. My favorite item is the schezwan fried rice and ginger tea. The small menu with interesting food items adds to the simple and cozy beauty of the place. The prices of the food are reasonable and affordable. You can’t expect low prices that you’d normally find in Darshinis, but they are not at all as expensive as the CCDs or Third Waves.
• It also offers a couple of board games to choose from! Theres ludo, uno, chess, cards, connect four etc., to play with.

The cafe owner is a middle aged man, he’s very reserved. I’ve visited fab cafe many times now, but I don’t know his name, and he never acknowledges me either, although I think one time I did compliment him about how I thought fab cafe was very nicely run. And I bet he doesnt know my name either. I’ve always felt like he carries an air of wanting to desperately focus on something in order to forget about something else and of course I think fab cafe is his point of focus.

There’s more — he’s got cats! Outdoors there are a bunch of cats and kittens that run around, but they never sit on the benches or on the tables, most of them are scared of humans. The cafe has been home for different set of cat families, the first set that I got to witness were friendly and not scared of us, while the second set are the opposite. But they listen to him , and they’re not scared of him. I don’t know how he finds them. Ever since covid happened he’s always worn a mask, never removes it. It makes me wonder if he’s always worn one, before covid as well.

Something that I personally like about the cafe is the music they play. They are all mainstream english / hindi pop songs but not the original songs. They are remixes/covers/acoustic versions of the original songs that suit a small cafe ambience.

Overall, its a beautiful place that attracts all kinds of crowds. I’ve seen everyone from families, college students and working adults sitting with their laptops. This definitely indicates success as it is liked by all kinds of people and also, its rarely empty. Reasonably priced food, board games, plug points at every table indoors, comfortable indoor and outdoor seating, cozy and refreshing ambience, what more does a cafe need?

I wanted to write about Fab Cafe after having talked to the owner . But I couldnt wait to post this. I probably will be updating this blog post once I do finally talk to him. My curiousity about the cafe doesnt end with the thoughts I’ve penned down here. I’d like to learn about how this cafe became so successful and one of the favorite spots for all the people living close to it.

So stay tuned folks ! Thank you for reading. My intention of every piece of writing I publish is to invoke in the reader a sense of inspiration, wonder, thoughtfulness, and a hell lot of appreciation for the abundant creativity that is life!