No beer, no cheer

The fasting fest of Navratri plays spoilsport to the T20 season, which is all about partying over beer.

Apart of the sixth edition of the T20 tournament overlapping with Navratri (April 11-19), has put the breaks on cricket fun. The reason — while the Indian domestic league is all about booze parties, food and adrenalin rush, Navratri calls for complete abstinence from all of these, especially non-vegetarian food and liquor.

Fans-of-Chennai-Super-Kings-gesture-during-the-IPL-T20-match-against-Mumbai-Indians-at-MA-Chidambaram-Stadium-in-Chennai-PTI

Restaurants and bars in the city are thus witnessing about a 40-50% drop in footfall.

“Beer is a hot seller during matches but in past two days, there’s hardly been any sale. We’ve seen a 50% dip in overall sales,” says restaurateur Priyank Sukhija of Fork You, Hauz Khas. “We’ve even introduced special vegetarian platters, but still the business is expected to fall by about 40% as people are avoiding eating out,” says Gagan Kapur of Buzz, Saket. Lavpreet Singh of Café Cruise feels that the fall is because during Navratri, people avoid eating at places that serve liquor. Owners of Ciro’s Pomodoro in GK I, and Escape Terrace Bar and Kitchen in Gurgaon also echo similar sentiments.

As a result, many restaurants have postponed their cricket-special offers for customers. “Drinks are the de rigueur of parties, more so for T20 bashes, so we have deferred our promotion till Navratri ends because watching these matches is incomplete without cheering over beer,” says Ishan Gupta of Tivoli Grand Hotel.