They have recruited deaf & mute youngsters to work with them. These youngsters are always smiling and they are more intuitive and more focused.
Prashant Issar the co-founder of the Mumbai-based restaurant Mirchi & Mine says his employees possess the right talent for the hospitality industry which employs 24 of them, all deaf and mute.
Issar, is an MBA from Henley Business School in Britain, and has run restaurants along those of Michelin star restaurant chefs like Gordon Ramsay.
The idea of a high-end restaurant that employed hearing and speech impaired staff first struck in August 2014– when Anuj Shah, also an MBA from Henley, met with Issar.
They agreed on a core value that was to generate wealth for both the society and the individual. Their restaurant opened in May 2015 and broke even operationally in two months, whereas it typically takes four months at least to do so.
Its differently-abled deaf and mute staff — servers, cashiers or bartender.
The staff of Deaf Mute & Magical have demonstrated their capability. The restaurant serves 220–250 people, and you are unlikely to find a table unless you make a reservation.
The staff took two weeks of training course in hospitality skills such as how to hold a tray, pour water and so on.
‘We are soon opening a second branch in South Mumbai. In the next five years we will open 21 such restaurants and employ 600 staff members. I am hoping to groom many of these to be supervisors and managers in the restaurants.’
The employees after all make an organisation — and the deaf and mute workforce have helped to build a profitable business.
