Of Lunch in the Closet

Every day a colleague and me go to this restaurant for lunch. It's walking distance from office and serves reasonably good non-south-Indian food. It's a regular restaurant with regular tables and regular chairs with regular staff and regular menu and regular food. Everything is regular apart from three small rooms in one corner. These rooms were numbered 4, 5 and 6 and had a "vacant" tag on top. Sometimes this vacant thing would show "occcupied". Of course, I was curious to know what is inside that room and why is it marked vacant and why are they numbered. We never got an opportunity to go inside, but today, we got lucky.

Today when we went there, all the regular tables were taken and we were ushered into room number 6. The room aka closet was smaller than 4 feet by 4 feet. The closet was furnished quite tastefully. It had a table, two sofas, a washbasin (with soap), one switch (we found out later what that switch did), and one fan on top, one CFL and not to forget one exhaust fan.

After we sat in there, the waiter closed the door to the room. This was not a regular door. It is like one of those old Hindi movies police station type creaking door. The ones that Amitabh Bachchan would hold and do so many things with. We found the concept of eating in a closed closet funny and scary and decided that we shall keep it open. The moment we opened it, the waiter rushed to us and asked if we want any help. Apparently opening the door meant asking for help.

He was then curt enough to tell us that if we want his assistance, we might use the switch and buzz him. The switch was actually connected to one of the buzzers. The moment we pressed it, there was a loud buzz sound and the waiter came rushing in. I was expecting he would knock on the door but he did not. We were being subjected to a royal experience. Please note the use of word subjected in place of treated.

Everyone from the manger to the waiters made sure that the door is kept closed at all times. If they had their way, they would not allow us to open the door at all and keep us inside for eternity. I thought for a moment that they could have shot another Cast Away or Bigboss right there. And who knows, I could have been famous also!

When we came outside after lunch in the closet, we realized there were host of other services inside – apart from privacy. As I said you could use buzzers to call waiters, we thought we have seen it all with a push button for calling waiters but there is more to it. Every time a buzzer is pressed, a red light is flashed outside that closet. The waiter has to press the light to turn it off and then he enters the cabin. I know it’s the same in the aircrafts but in a restaurant and that too a quarter star? Awesome!

This place is must visit for these magnificent buzzers, closet closets and

For people who are interested in knowing more, the restaurant is called Safari and its on Peters Road in Royapettah.