{"id":5138,"date":"2016-05-27T10:01:02","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T04:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=5138"},"modified":"2016-05-27T10:01:02","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T04:31:02","slug":"cafe-coffee-day-ccd-vg-siddhartha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=5138","title":{"rendered":"Caf\u00e9 Coffee Day, Where A Lot Happened Over Coffee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span><\/p><\/div>

f you\u2019ve been on Twitter recently, you might have noticed that people are <\/span>reminiscing<\/span><\/a> over where they had their very first dates, sharing puppy love stories of furtive hand holding and awkward kisses. There were a few common refrains that exemplified what dating in our salad days was like: School canteens, <\/span>ice cream<\/span><\/a> parlours, chaat stalls. But the clear winner for first date spots was the widely beloved Caf\u00e9 Coffee Day \u2014 or, as it\u2019s more commonly known, CCD. One user talks about a tryst in a CCD outlet after her school annual day, another mentions that it\u2019s all he could afford with his pocket money, and a third says on her first date CCD was playing \u201cMaine Pyaar Kiya\u201d and she couldn\u2019t stop laughing. CCD, it seems, is for lovers.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nFounded in 1996 in Bangalore, the chain has also become synonymous with crowd-pleasing snacks and pastries, and what we now recognise in this <\/span>hipster<\/span><\/a> Blue Tokai era as pretty okay cups of coffee. Before Flipkart and Ola became giants, and before you had an Indian startup going unicorn every week, there was VG Siddhartha\u2019s CCD growing into a brand that would define the country\u2019s perception of the cafe. So it\u2019s tragic to see the man behind a brand that meant so much to us noughties teens, which gave us so much to look forward to, so much to aspire for, encounter such despair and hopelessness in the end.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nLike most adults, I\u2019ve left behind the CCD of my ill-spent youth, graduating to fancier, more expensive coffee shops with foreign names and better brew. Now, we have Starbucks for our beverage needs, and the once-exotic espresso machine can be found in any restaurant. But b<\/span>ack when most of us didn\u2019t know the <\/span>difference<\/span><\/a> between a filter kaapi and a latte, and certainly couldn\u2019t appreciate the bitter tang of a cold brew, CCD was the place to be.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nAn everyday hangout place where you could always find a good use for whatever little pocket money you had saved, spending hours hogging a table, nursing a single cappuccino. Where else could you find a cheap and cheerful sit-down place that took you away from the banality of roadside vendors and <\/span>monsooned<\/span><\/a> streets? To be in a proper cafe on the plush chairs that made you feel like you were at Central Perk from <\/span>F.R.I.E.N.D.S<\/span><\/i>, and to see the signature foam heart in your white cup was a sophisticated, grown-up thrill for a lot of 14-year-olds \u2014 almost as much as drinking a glassful of melted chocolate topped with whipped cream, another quintessential CCD vibe.<\/span>\n\nThe friendly red sign marked one of the few places that was unanimously declared harmless and sin-proof, where everyone was allowed to go even if they had unreasonably strict <\/span>parents<\/span><\/a>. How much, after all, could go wrong at a wholesome desi cafe? If only they knew. A fly on the wall could tell you sordid tales of dates that had the casual, yet mature connotation of \u201cgoing out for a coffee\u201d, girls who rushed to the loo to change out of their school uniforms and put on kajal, and tantrumy adolescent breakups that involved shattered plates and tears. Even now, CCD continues to be the stage of choice for a compendium of teenage drama, and a rite of passage for youth.<\/span>\n\n

To be in a proper cafe on the plush chairs that made you feel like you were at Central Perk from F.R.I.E.N.D.S, and to see the signature foam heart in your white cup was a sophisticated, grown-up thrill for a lot of 14-year-olds \u2014 almost as much as drinking a glassful of melted chocolate topped with whipped cream, another quintessential CCD vibe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nCaf\u00e9 Coffee Day is as much a part of growing up in India as the brown-paper covers on our notebooks. While it\u2019s hard to argue that any of us would return for the gourmet food or the great coffee, there are few places that hold a greater <\/span>nostalgia<\/span><\/a> value, regardless of what the stock market may say. It transcends the geographical distance of Kolkata and Bangalore, or Surat and Munnar, and yet, we all have a specific CCD that is closest to our hearts, as unique as the iconic vada pav wala near Mumbai\u2019s Mithibai College or the bhature chole in Delhi\u2019s Kamla Nagar.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nFor me, it was the one on <\/span>Carter Road<\/span><\/a>, next to the khau galli where my school friends and I would stuff our faces with junk food delights, competing to see who could scarf down the most momos and doughnuts. As our stomachs filled and the evening turned to night, we would look for a place to relax. Inevitably, the answer would come in the form of CCD, where we could sprawl comfortably in the patio chairs with no fear of being kicked out, idly chucking sugar packets at each other as the sea roared across the street.<\/span>\n\nI haven\u2019t been to CCD in years. Like everything else, it has its time and place. Because whether it was your introduction to the concept of \u201ccoffee culture\u201d, your go-to chill spot after school, your favourite place to bunk college, or where you, like so many others, remember the tentative bloom of romance, CCD is a <\/span>millennial<\/span><\/a> institution, where a lot happened over coffee.\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in the day when most of us didn\u2019t know the difference between a filter kaapi and a latte, Caf\u00e9 Coffee Day was the place to be. An everyday hangout place where you could always find a good use for whatever little pocket money you had saved, spending hours hogging a table, nursing a single cappuccino.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":5139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[2521,8732,8733,8734,7830,707,1245,2918,8735,8736,8737,81,8738,8739,1180,8740],"class_list":["post-5138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pov","tag-business","tag-cafe-coffee-day","tag-ccd","tag-devils-own","tag-kingfisher","tag-mental-health","tag-millennials","tag-nostalgia","tag-noughties","tag-sensex","tag-stock-market","tag-suicide","tag-teens","tag-vg-siddhartha","tag-vijay-mallya","tag-youth-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nCaf\u00e9 Coffee Day, Where A Lot Happened Over Coffee<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Back in the day when most of us didn\u2019t know the difference between a filter kaapi and a latte, Caf\u00e9 Coffee Day was the place to be. 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