Gugababa

BTM Layout 2nd Stage is a maze of small lanes and one-way streets. We are tucked away in Lane E 25. If you don't know the area, you might drive right past us. It’s a tiny place, really just a room and a kitchen. Most of our customers are students from the nearby hostels or young guys working their first jobs. They don't have much money, so we try to keep things cheap. We make a lot of tea and snacks. The stove is almost never turned off. I spend most of my day standing on the concrete floor, which is why my knees hurt every evening. We don't have a fancy sign or a big glass front. It’s just an open shutter and some benches. We talk to everyone who comes in. You hear all the gossip about the local colleges and who is looking for a job. It feels more like a hangout than a business sometimes. We don't have a mission statement or anything like that. We just need to sell enough tea to pay the rent and keep the milk man happy. Sometimes the rain floods the lane a little and we have to put out bricks for people to step on. It’s just a normal, messy part of living in BTM. We like the noise and the constant flow of people through the door.