An offer to have Coffee with Conversation
We, as a nation, love to ‘adda’ – hanging out for random conversations. And let’s not forget the bits of snacks and drinks that complement our chit chats. And there hardly can be any tête-à-tête without snacks, especially here in Bangladesh – be it savory or sweet and drinks, hot or cold. Out of this love, Kiva Han, the specialty coffee boutique, came into being. Striving to remain true to its name, Kiva wants to be the place for not just casual meetings, but also intellectual sharing between individuals and even groups.
Kiva refers to a dug out circular space where spiritual leaders used to gather to discuss ideas and thoughts with their community. Han, a Turkish word, means beautiful. Between 14th and 15th century, Kiva Han, the first coffee house with its root in modern Turkey, set the trends for coffee houses across the world.
Trying to recreate semblance and essence in today’s context, Samit Bin Salam opened Kiva Han in Gulshan in 2013. His life in the UK exposed him to the prevalent global coffee culture and he felt that it was high time coffee had become one of major everyday drinks in Bangladesh as well.
The first big hurdle Samit faced was about making the people familiar with the coffee culture. Coffee was not yet an everyday affair for most. The idea of starting a wholly coffee shop seemed quite preposterous back in 2005, Samit recalled. It took about eight years to give successful light to the idea of opening a coffee boutique with a wide array of food items that complement and enhances the tastes of different flavours of coffee and other drinks like juices, smoothies and customised soda drinks with syrups.
Menu covers both sweet and savory items along with combinations of continental, Middle Eastern and Thai-Chinese fusion cuisine for both lunch and dinner. To perfectly go with the menu and the name, the interior has been designed to capture the Middle Eastern ambience with arts and graphics that educate and fascinate the visitors about coffee, its origin and journey over time and space. Within a budget of Tk 1,000 one can easily avail a delicious meal.
Kiva Han has arranged its operation on the structure of three business models to reach its customers. First business model is the Kiva Han Coffee Boutique which is its flagship outlet located in Gulshan; second, Kiva Han Expresso, a small outlet located at GP House and lastly, the Kiva Han Coffee Kiosk, an upcoming idea to be placed in corporate buildings and shopping malls. Though this unique business model is set to attract particular customers, overall Kiva Han targets middle-income bracket people and its clientele boasts of corporate and university goers alike. Kiva Han plans to come up with standardised menu for all its business models to bring consistency along its operations.
In order to run its operations successfully, Kiva Han plans to control every aspects of its value chain starting with careful and controlled procurement of raw materials to food preparation and services to marketing and finally branding. Currently it acquires coffee beans from three import sources while other food ingredients are collected from well-known suppliers with whom Kiva Han builds long-term relationship. Without efficient and congenial services, a restaurant is nothing but a disgrace. Keeping that in mind, Kiva Han team has trained its baristas in-house on the intricacies of roasting, brewing, serving the perfect cup of Coffee.
Marketing is one aspect of its business that hasn’t quite paced up with its increasing operations. Till now Kiva Han hardly took any major promotional activities. The team is at its development stage of brand building and promoting. However, through Facebook Kiva Han has continued its interaction with customers. It has established channel partnership with big corporate houses like Standard Chartered Bank, Eastern Bank Limited and Grameen Phone. It’s in the process of establishing ties with other telecom companies. Despite the emergence of other coffee shops both global and local in Dhaka city, Samit believes, the pie is still large enough for all the players in the market. They are cooperating with each other to promote coffee as a mainstream drink.
Kiva Han’s future plan entails bringing world famous syrup collections under Kiva Han brand, expanding up to retail stage and acting as a distributor to other restaurants as well. There’s a plan of opening in-house formal training facility for anybody interested in learning the delicacies of coffee roasting and brewing. It also plans to act as a consultant for aspirant coffee shop and restaurant openers and supply all the necessary accessories for successful operation of a coffee shop. The coffee shop hopes to expand its operation through franchises, a well played expansion method by famous global brands. Kiva Han is all set and mapped to become more than another coffee shop in the market.
