City Leads project | Food Tour

Title - "Bandra Bites: A Culinary Quest"

Overview:

Bring the GrowthX community together for a memorable experience that blends food, fun, and connection! This interactive food tour through Mumbai's vibrant culinary scene will include a mini treasure hunt. Participants will solve clues and puzzles at each stop, guiding them to the next hidden gem. It's the perfect way to bond, share stories, and explore the city while indulging in some of its best food.

IP selected	Venue	Agenda
Food tour with a twist	There are two options of doing a food tour in Mumbai - Bandra bites of different cuisines in India - A dedicated tour of parsi food in South Mumbai. Parsi bakeries are centural old and will evoke a sense of curiosity	Head to a central location like Bandra in mumbai, which is a melting pot of culture and different cuisines across the world and country & India Alternately head to South Mumbai to have a dedicated food tour for Parsi food, which has been fairly undiscovered

Pre-even planning (when)

Date Selection

For this food tour, we need to consider Mumbai’s weather and traffic conditions. I propose hosting the event in November or December, when the weather is pleasant and post-festival traffic (after Ganpati and Navratri) is lighter, encouraging more participation.

Date: 30th December, 5:00 pm onwards.

The goal is to foster networking while building stronger bonds within the GrowthX community. Unlike traditional networking over coffee, this event will encourage organic connections through shared experiences as we explore Bandra’s food scene. By tasting different cuisines and solving clues together, members will naturally engage with each other, making it an interactive and memorable experience.

We are targeting a group of 20 participants, as the logistics of a food tour require a manageable size. Walking through Bandra’s lanes, a larger group would be harder to coordinate effectively.

Audience & Venue Selection (Who & Where)

Audience will be open to all community members of GrowthX who reside in Mumbai and not restricting to folks from a specific Job profile or Background. The idea here is networking and people to interact with each other from diverse backgrounds
The place will be in Bandra and starting restaurant will be iconic restaurant - Hearsh Bakery. A small and quaint bakery tucked away on the Hill Road, this famous food hub was started by German baker J. Hearsch which is a century old
The dishes here start from 10 Rs, such as a bread roll which is made in true Goan style
The meeting point will be St. Andrews school on Hill road which is 500 mts from Hearsh Bakery
Folks, will be given a clue to reach Hearsh Bakery from St. Andrews School

Communication with Vendor (How)

Curate a list of places (Minimum 5) , where we will be stopping to enjoy a few bites and discovery the history which are centuries old (Parsi restaurant)
Email/Call the cafes and restaurants requesting them to keep the selected dish ready for 20 people on the selected date and pay a token amount to block the order
Communicate that this is a part of a networking activity for a community of Growth leaders and future leaders

GTM (How)

Timeline - The event announcement should be done 3-4 weeks in advance to ensure participation and availability of members
Channel used should be Mumbai Chapter channel on GrowthX community slack & events slack channel.Along with slack, emails can be shared to community members whose data we have which is marked as Mumbai City instead of spamming all the city members. This can be done depending upon the engagement on slack announcement. Below is the structure of when the messages should be sent

4 weeks: Announce the event, open registrations, and create some initial buzz , ask people to react w an emoji
3.5 weeks before: Send a reminder with more details to boost excitement and encourage sign-ups and share payment links
2 weeks before: Confirm logistics, send reminders to participants, and build anticipation by sharing teasers or clues about the food tour.
1 week before: Send final reminders, including meeting points and any important event info

Below message can be shared along with the map of bandra - Queen of Suburbs to create more excitement

Join us for an exciting culinary adventure through Bandra! Follow the clues, solve the riddles, and uncover hidden gems as you embark on a quest to explore some of the best food spots in the Queen of Suburbs.

Communicate that we would be covering 5 resturants in bandra which is within a 2 - 4 KM radius.
Ask everyone to wear comfortable shoes

During the event

Share the meeting point with everyone for the event, for eg: . Share a map with participants and also guidance on how to reach there from different modes of transport. Train, Rickshaw, Uber and Car
Once participants have reached, introduce yourself. Meet and Greet. Allow everyone to become acquainted
Play a few icebreaker questions related to food - People can share the craziest thing they have eaten or the best thing they have eaten and the story behind it
They can share their comfort food and also their fav Indian cuisine which is not native to their community
Divide the teams into groups and hand out the first clue which will take them to Hearsh Bakery
Communicate that the event will take 2 hours and we will cover 5 popular and historic places in this foodie tour

"Tucked away on a hill, where flavors rise,
A century-old tale, a German surprise.
Started in war, now a local delight,
Find this quaint spot on Bandra's busy site."

Or

S C H E R A H"

Rearrange the letters to find the name of a century-old bakery in Bandra!