Episode
Part 1: Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on Mocha, "Handmade," four near-deaths and 25 years of building places to be
- Podcast
- First Principles
- Published
- Jun 15, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3858
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://share.transistor.fm/s/9b819ebe
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/first-principles-5628315/episodes/part-1-impresario-s-riyaaz-amlani-on-mocha-handmade-four-near-deaths-and-25-years-of-building-places-to-be/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/first-principles-5628315/part-1-impresario-s-riyaaz-amlani-on-mocha-handmade-four-near-deaths-and-25-years-of-building-places-to-be.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
Check out our corporate subscription plan: https://the-ken.com/corporate-teams/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=corporate-subscriptions Part 1 of Rohin Dharmakumar's conversation with Riyaaz Amlani is the origin story: why a returning UCLA grad decided Bombay was missing "places to be," how Mocha became Social, and what it actually takes to keep a restaurant group alive for 25 years in the highest-mortality business there is. The shisha ban, the private-equity money that never arrived, COVID, the marble hustle at age six, and the real engine underneath it all: people. CHAPTERS 00:00 Intro: 95% fail by year two — and the man who didn't 01:46 Why Mocha in 2001: a city missing "places to be" 03:23 Bombay the "coolest cousin"; South Bombay snobbery moves to Bandra 05:05 The MTV / Gen X generation and a West-facing India 07:47 UCLA, entertainment management, and learning to live culture 11:29 What "Handmade" and "Impresario" mean 14:13 The business today: 80 restaurants, 900 cr, 5,500 people 15:29 Why restaurants die; learning from the community 18:02 People vs processes — and why he keeps returning to people 19:32 Social: the millennial third space and the shisha ban 25:41 The Gen Z puzzle; Saltwater to Bandra Bourn; evolution vs revolution 30:46 Real estate: location vs locality and India's "80 pockets" 32:32 The metric that matters: AOV x covers x table turnaround 35:33 COVID and surviving "mass-extinction events" 39:17 The town hall: the team takes 40% pay to save the company 40:51 What losing a restaurant feels like; the discipline to quit 42:44 Mental model: 4-5 engines to ride economic cycles 46:42 The marble business and hustling from age 12 51:20 Bowling alleys & Phoenix Mills: people buy time together 53:44 Self-rating: 7.5 as a pare…