Being Social With Riyaaz Amlani

This dynamic restaurateur has revolutionised the way people party and spend evenings in India through his uber-cool ventures like Mocha, Social and Smoke House Deli. Read on to know how…

- Rahulpaul

The meeting venue is Riyaaz’s latest brainchild, Flea Bazaar Café at Lower Parel, Mumbai. The place boasts of delicious food and drinks from 14 different brands put together. Before we could start, we had our orders placed as the place fills up like crazy as the daylight dims. Riyaaz arrived casually dressed with a mischievous smile on his face. We congratulate him on the opening of his 10th outpost of Social in his home town Mumbai, where he has had a very happy childhood, he tells us. “I remember, I was very fond of reading and was basically an introvert, still am. People find that hard to believe but it’s a skill. I went to school at St Mary’s and started working in a shoe shop in Colaba at a young age of 13,” he says. I stopped him for a moment to ask him if he was good at selling shoes. “I was very good at it and had figured out that people didn’t want the product but how the product made them feel,” Riyaaz says matter-of-factly. He doesn’t cringe from taking credit for his talent and observation skills.