Samrat Restaurant, the 40-year-old iconic restaurant in Bengaluru, is set to shut down on Monday, September 26. Located near Vidhana Soudha, this eatery was best known for its masala dosa, badam halwa and rava idli. According to The New Indian Express, the restaurant is closing down at its current location, Chalukya Hotel, because their lease with the hotel has ended. However, it is likely that another branch called Mini Samrat will be serving the same food and there are talks of the restaurant being closer to the Jain Hospital on Miller's road.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, the cashier of the restaurant Ravindranath Nayak said that they usually serve about 3000 customers per day and ever since the news of their closure became public, there is an increased rush. He felt that even if the restaurant is moved to a new location, the feel and decor will not be the same. Nayak added that the late actor Dr Puneeth Rajkumar and his family used to visit the restaurant frequently.
Several patrons of the restaurant took to Twitter to express their feelings about their favourite eatery closing down. Supreme Court advocate Brijesh Kalappa tweeted a picture of himself and the bill saying that it was mentioned in the bill to visit again but “there will be no more visits.”
We visited the Chalukya Hotel this morning. Samrat restaurant closes for good on 26th September.
— Brijesh Kalappa (@brijeshkalappa) September 25, 2022
The bill thanks us and urges us to 'visit again', but there will no more visits pic.twitter.com/hd7CqmoqrL
Another user shared a picture of the restaurant and said that she was sad because she will not be able to take her kids to the eatery, two decades later, and say “in my times, the masala dosa was just ₹65 & tasted 10x better” (sic).
Samrat restaurant in Chalukya hotel apparently shut today & took with it a part of my childhood.
— Apurva Hendi (@apurvahendi) September 25, 2022
Now I can never bring my kids to this place two decades later, exclaim at the prices & do the “in my times, the masala dosa was just ₹65 & tasted 10x better” :-) pic.twitter.com/bbbT7HuShI
One user shared a picture of the Samrat restaurant on his Instagram story with the caption ‘one last time’ to which people replied asking if he was leaving the country for his master’s degree.
I went to Samrat Restaurant at Hotel Chalukya and put it up on my story with the caption "one last time" as the restaurant is closing shop in 2 days. People are replying to that story asking if I'm leaving the country for my masters.
— Alter ego and 2 others (@buttermilkoreo) September 23, 2022
Makes you think, doesn't it