Look around and you’ll realise that India’s been going through something of a culinary explosion. Chefs have risen to influencer status, often defining the worth of an establishment. Restaurants open faster than you can place an order at one. Bar takeovers make you forget which one you’ve entered in the first place. Amidst the chaos, competition and occasional superfluity sit two of the scene’s most unassuming, established F&B soldiers, Ryan and Keenan Tham. You’ll rarely see them at industry gigs; their collective social media is more of a family and friends’ album than a promotional space; and they couldn’t care less about catching on to hype trends. Yet, they remain two of the cleverest, most successful entrepreneurs in the game.  

The brothers, under their company Pebble Street Hospitality, are the big bosses of KOKO that’s been one of Mumbai’s greatest hits since 2016, and recently opened doors in Bengaluru and Hyderabad; Foo is India’s most accessible premium Pan-Asian restaurant and has 12 outlets; and given us Mexican fare at Pompa in the financial capital. These are, however, present additions to their vast CV.  

Keenan Tham & Ryan Tham

Ryan and Keenan are OG players in the scene, having first set up one of Mumbai's hottest nightclubs Trilogy in 2010 and restobar The Good Wife in 2014. The former pandered to a party-hungry suburban crowd who finally had a classy joint to let loose in, without having to trek to South Bombay. The latter was one of the first bars to hit what was then Mumbai’s newly minted corporate hub of BKC—becoming the go-to spot for professionals looking to escape their work woes with a pint or five. Both are now shuttered but were testimony to their ability to tap into markets that no one was looking at.  
 

Before all of this was really when the brothers set their foundation at Henry Tham, their late great father’s iconic namesake establishment, where they learnt their fundamentals. They also had a front-row seat to their grandfather and father’s legendary Chinese restaurant, Kamling—making them third-generation F&B entrepreneurs who were conditioned to understand the potential, longevity and success of a Pan-Asian restaurant in India; a feature that’s become their USP. What it also did was to teach the brothers how to open sustainable F&B outlets, without the market pressure of opening one-hit wonders. But don’t mistake their chill for tardiness. What the Tham brothers carry is a lethal combination of immense legacy, present-day experience and maturity, and an aggressive game plan to take their existing products to every hot city in the country. Maybe that’s the real recipe for enduring success at a time when F&B in India is at its most competitive.  

What’s 2024 been like for you? 
Ryan: It’s been great. We’ve gone pan India with our brand and opened in various cities with some more in the pipeline. 
Keenan: We have KOKO Hyderabad that’s just opened; this is after KOKO and Foo opening in Bengaluru. The spending power in Hyderabad is immense. There are a huge number of expats in the corporate segment; disposable income is rising; and it also has the largest number of HNI’s in the country. 

Which markets have surprised you the most? 
Ryan: Surely Bengaluru. The Foo there has given us 40-50 per cent revenue above what we expected. In terms of average spend per person, it’s the highest of all the 12 Foo’s that we have.  

What are your individual roles in the company? 
Keenan: We’ve been working together since we came back from university in 2006. When our dad got us into the business at the time, he made us do everything. He was clear about us working in the restaurant from the ground up and was like, ‘I’m here if you need any help but you guys run the show.’ He didn’t hire a manager, so we had to do everything—from being part-time cashiers to restaurant managers, servers and electricians. We both got a good idea of how to run this business and exchanged roles throughout the course of our journey. Over the last eight years or so, Ryan’s been focused on the growth of the business, expanding the brand and setting up projects. I handle a lot of the product development, marketing, food and day-to-day operations.  

Ryan: Firstly, I’m always on time but on a serious note, we have a lot of overlapping areas. There was a time when we both did everything in the restaurant. On days when he wouldn’t come in, I would do his part and vice versa. But then once we started growing and expanding, we focussed on areas that we liked. There were times when we were like okay you try marketing, or I’ll try finance. Now we’re 14 restaurants old and the company is fairly large—we sit in the office most of the time and have completely disengaged from operations on a daily level.  

Charcoal Har-Gow, Gold Dust at Foo

Do you feel the pressure of being Henry Tham’s son?  
Keenan: Actually, being known as Henry Tham’s son was a great thing for us. My dad had a lot of goodwill in the market. 

How have you all grown up along the way?  
Keenan: I think we’ve had a couple of products that were indicative of our age and mindset at the time. We had Henry Tham, Trilogy, The Good Wife…. we were having fun with these spaces in our 20s. We had a great 8-9 year run with Trilogy. But I don’t think we can run a nightclub in our 40s. 
Ryan: In the last two years [of Trilogy], we were physically and mentally drained out, saying ‘Bro I’m tired, you go today.’ 

What would get you through a night out now? 
Ryan: A long party night ahead would mean Grey Goose. Or tequila every now and then.  
Keenan: Tequila-soda or whiskey-water. I do champagne on and off. I have a five-year-old daughter who I’ve trained well. She eats 90per cent dark chocolate, blue cheese and wagyu.  
Ryan: She’ll have very expensive taste when she grows up. 

Hakka Noodles at Foo

Were Trilogy and The Good Wife an extension of your personalities?  
Ryan: They were. There have been so many other opportunities, but it wasn’t in our DNA to do it. We want to build places where we would love to be ourselves. Even what we have today reflects it. We would never build a nightclub today.  

Are you all patrons of your own establishments now? 
Ryan: On most days by default, we eat at one of the restaurants depending on where we are. But otherwise, I’d devour mutton curry, chicken curry, kheema pao, paya... 
Keenan: Give me a good steak and foie gras. 

KOKO Bengaluru

What was the intent with which you started KOKO? 
Ryan: In 2016, we wanted to build a place that we would like to go. If someone would’ve built KOKO then, we would’ve probably gone there. We didn’t have experience at Olive, but my dad was already running it from 2000. The resto-bar format was interesting—Olive and Indigo were stalwarts in that space. But no one was doing an Asian space like it, especially in the middle of Mumbai. We’d done Trilogy and The Good Wife. But that thirst to come back to Asian food and to do a medium segment space outside of hotels was KOKO. Real estate was also affordable. Bear in mind, that Foo was nowhere on the cards at the time.  

Then came Foo… 
Keenan: At some point, we felt like we were running a mom-and-pop shop and wanted to create something of more value to the company. We had a lot of ideas. There was nothing ‘wow’ in the Asian segment. We were looking at the dining pattern at that time and wanted to break that format of ordering two things and sharing it amongst four people. We wanted to do Asian tapas, where three people could order eight things. We almost didn’t put the main course on the menu. There was a little backfire on the portion size at the time, but a lot of people took to it, and it was very appealing to a younger audience as well. The price points also helped. You sit down and get out in 45 minutes. 

Foo Bengaluru

What contributed to the change in how Indians dine? 
Ryan: Social media, shows like MasterChef and endless media around food… have all helped in educating people about better quality food. There are a lot of international foods coming into India. The supply chain has gotten better. Earlier fancy stuff and ingredients like salmon were only available at five-star hotels. Today, a restaurant like Foo can import items from Japan if need be. Regulatory systems are better. Whatever Wasabi at the Taj can serve you; we can also put that on our table. Ingredients and chefs are available. The whole ecosystem has changed. Everyone’s on the same page and palates have changed. You can’t fool the customer. They expect a lot and are ready to pay, but they want to see value and be taken care of. And they know what to compare it to now.  
Keenan: With travel, people get exposed to a lot of different things and expectation levels change. You see Chinese food from where it was to where it is today in Bombay. 

Yellow Curry Blue Rice at Foo

What are the challenges of being in this industry?  
Ryan: It’s a people-driven industry, so the internal mechanisms of managing people. We’ve got upwards of 1300 staff. It’s a lot. Externally, as owners or promoters the hard part is not having FOMO to trends and knowing how to stay in your lane and fundamentals. We’ve stayed away from several trends—it’s like fashion, there’ll always be something new that comes along. How much can your restaurant keep changing and losing its identity? You can’t just keep chasing the highs. You will have to eventually look at sustaining it. You rather evolve than keep trending. The hard part is also staying relevant within that.  

Do we now have a robust F&B community? 
Ryan: The community has become a fraternity. The catalyst was probably Covid—where everyone came together and were feeding off each other, asking questions like, ‘How do you survive? How do you deal with landlords? What are you doing with your staff? How do you reopen?’ That got everyone talking a lot more. Prior to that as well, more restaurateurs realised that instead of being far away from each other, if you open in a cluster format then everyone thrives. Kamala Mills become that with KOKO, Bombay Canteen, Demy, and a few more massy places. Bandra became that as well. To keep you in my restaurant from 9 pm to 1:30 am is very difficult, regardless of what I do. If you’ve made the effort to get ready and go out, then you’d want to go to 2-3 places. 

What next?  
Keenan: While we’re focused on Pan Asian, our plan is to dominate that space and become one of the largest organised players in that space. But as entrepreneurs, we will still experiment when we find an opportunity in any market.