Business Desk 
Mar 23, 2024
Zomato has become a household name, especially in India, and all credit goes to its founder Deepinder Goyal who managed to establish a brand which changed the dynamics of food delivery service.
While Zomato is a restaurant finder and food delivery app, people always have one question in mind which is will Zomato ever open its own restaurant?
In a recent podcast 'Breaking Bread' with celebrity chef Anahita Dhondy, the Zomato CEO said cleared the air and outright refuted speculations regarding Zomato’s own restaurant. He said that his company will never open its own restaurants or cloud kitchens as it will be unethical.
Goyal further said that restaurant business is difficult and “Zomato would never enter that space”.
Read more: Don’t start a business if you want to make money, says Zomato CEO
The Zomato CEO said: “We don't want to do restaurants. It's a very hard business. We don't want to compete with restaurants. Never. I think it's not ethical to do it. I mean if we have built a platform working with you [restaurants] then we have sort of leveraged your presence to build this. We can't go back and say 'accha main bhi ye karoonga' (I will also do it). It's not ethical.”
In response to a question regarding his stance if he is forced to open a restaurant under any circumstances, he reiterated: “Never. It's been like: no chance. Honestly, if I had to, I would still not do it. I have so much respect for restaurant owners and chefs. It's the one of the hardest businesses to run.”
Goyal, who was also seen on the judges panel in Shark Tank Season, maintained that business is not easy to run as “I think a lot of people like when they get out of college or they want to quit a job, they say 'yaar, restaurant kholna hai mujhe'. And I am like 'dude, that's the hardest business ever made. So, please, don't think about it as there's so much more to it'.”
"I would say every single business needs a certain amount of blood, sweat and tears to build. Restaurants take more blood, sweat tears to build a business. You have to be really passionate and have the energy every single day. You can't take one day off. You take one day off, things will fall," he continued.
Goyal, while laughing his heart out, said that a large percentage of the Zomato users already believe the company runs the restaurants. "One of our largest negative reviews is: 'I didn't like the quality of food'. I think maybe 30-40% of the customers out there don't really know that we don't make the food. They think all the restaurants are Zomato restaurants," he recalled.
