Thulasi Veg Cafe

It is a small place on Dharapuram Road, right in the Aranmanai Pudur area. We are at number 55. The morning starts really early here because people want their tiffin before they head off to work. The kitchen gets hot pretty fast once the stoves are lit. You can hear the scrap of the spatula on the tiffin plates and the sound of the mixer grinding up chutney in the back. We don't have a huge menu with hundreds of items. We just make what we know how to make every single day. Mostly it's just local folks from the neighborhood who stop in. Some stay and eat at the small tables, others just want something packed up quickly so they can get going. The traffic on Dharapuram Road is always humming outside the door, but inside it’s just the smell of sambar and fresh coffee. We spend a lot of time cleaning up, wiping down the counters, and making sure the water is ready. It’s not a fancy restaurant where you sit for hours. It’s a cafe for people who are hungry and want a quick bite that tastes like it was made at home. Sometimes we run out of things by the afternoon, and that’s just how it goes. We close up when the food is done and start getting ready for the next morning. It’s a lot of standing on your feet, but we like the routine of it.