From School Drop-Out To Successful Story Of A2B

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A small store that was started by KS Thirupathi Raja in 1988, taking on the prefix ‘Adyar’ to its name because of the locality, has now grown into India’s largest food chain to offer a variety of sweets, snacks, pure-vegetarian restaurants and party halls, milk, ice creams, vegetables and fruits, bakery, confectionary, and millet food. 

Three decades ago, a small sweet shop was started by Late K.S. Thirupathi Raja, in the metropolis of Chennai. This same shop has now flowered into multiple branches that dot the length and breadth of Chennai as well as its neighbouring cities. The baton of this sweet legacy was passed on by K.S. Thirupathi Raja to his sons, Mr. K.T. Venkatesan and Mr. K.T. Srinivasa Raja who now act as the driving force behind A2B.

 

Adyar Ananda Bhavan brings you exciting vegetarian food, making it a perfect place for dining with family or just a quick bite on the go. The food is made using the fresh and pure vegetarian ingredients ensuring that they serve the healthiest food. Adyar Ananda Bhavan is reckoned among the best vegetarian restaurants all over India and abroad. The restaurant provides fabulous traditional South Indian food, tremendous North Indian food, and marvelous Chinese food for their dearest patrons. Customer satisfaction, immaculate ambiance, superior quality, perfect taste and fair price are the signs of A2B Restaurant.


 

How the journey began:

 

Back in the 1970s, an agricultural family in Rajapalayam in south Tamil Nadu was completely broke after a rare dust storm hit the village and devastated their farmlands making it uncultivable.Thirupathi Raja, the head of the family, was heart-broken. He used to cultivate paddy and sugarcane in their eight-acre land and had only recently borrowed money to lease more land to expand his farming activities.

 

He opened a small sweets shop named Guru Sweets, in Rajapalayam town near Madurai, Tamil Nadu. With the help of Raja’s wife Muthu Lakshmi, Guru Sweets dished out items like wheat halwa, laddu, jahangir, badusha and the famous Mysore pak. The store also sold a few savoury items, most notably karasev, made of gram flour. But that did not last long.

 

“In 1978, my father opened another sweet shop, Srinivasa Sweets, in Bengaluru near Malleshwaram,” says KT Srinivasa Raja, Thirupathi Raja’s younger son. Srinivasa Sweets, unlike the previous shop, survived for about 10 years with Raja taking over the reins a year after it opened. “By 1980, my father and older brother [KT Venkatesan] had set up another sweets and savoury shop, Shri Anand Bhavan, in Royapuram, Chennai,” he says.That was the start of Adyar Ananda Bhavan (it was renamed post 1988)

 

 

 Thirupathi Raja could count on the support of his wife and two sons - who had dropped out from school – for running the shop. The family developed the business brick by brick living out of a tiny house, which had a bedroom, hall and kitchen.The family weathered the storm and emerged stronger, because it seems they were destined to make delicious sweets, set up shops around the country, spread globally, and create jobs for thousands of people, who would get free food and accommodation as well.

 

“I discontinued my studies after Class 10,” says Srinivasa Raja, who had studied in a government school in Rajapalayam in Tamil medium. “My father would make the sweets and my mother would help him. I would go around supplying sweets to shops in the neighbourhood. My (elder) brother K T Venkatesan looked after our shop.”

 

From such humble beginnings, the family has come a long way. The family now lives in a huge 12,000 sq ft three-storey house in a posh locality in South Chennai. Srinivasa Raja owns a few high-end cars and his favourite one is a Volvo XC90 petrol-electric hybrid SUV.

 

“We introduced new varieties of sweets,” shares Srinivasa Raja, on how they differentiated from their competitors in the business. “We brought people from Rajasthan, Bengal, Punjab, and UP to make the popular sweets in those places and they became a hit with customers here.”By 1994, their turnover crossed Rs 100 crore. Currently they have more than 10,000 employees with ₹800 crore in turnover.

 

In the early 2000s, the company started their high class Vegetarian restaurant under the brand name “A2B”. Both brands exist together in all the outlets in India as it serves customers with some of the most delicious Sweets, Savouries and pure vegetarian delicacies. 

 

A2B has branches in 6 countries as of now with the plan to put a pin in the main cities of every country across the globe in the near future to be the most favourite South Indian Food brand in the world.

 

Around 25 Adyar Ananda Bhavan outlets are located on national highways in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. “Our aim is to have one of our outlets at every 200 km on all national highways across India,” says Srinivasa Raja.Chennai and Bengaluru are the two cities where Adyar Ananda Bhavan has its largest presence. Both the cities have a centralised kitchen from where food is prepared and delivered to the various outlets.

 

Three Decades ago a small sweet shop started by Late K.S.Thirupathi Raja in the then Metropolis of Chennai, India, has now flowered over 120 branches covering the length and breadth of Chennai city, its neighboring places such as Kanchipuram, Erode, Madurai, Trichy, Coimbatore, Tripur and the states of Karnataka, Pondicherry and Delhi. M/s. Adyar Ananda Bhavan Sweets & Snacks is now well established and firmly in saddle as one of the leading and exclusive sweets and savories manufacturer in South India. The driving force behind the concern now is the twobrothers Mr. K.T. Venkatesan and Mr. K.T. Srinivasa Raja to whom the baton of rich sweet tradition has been passed on by their late father K.S.Thirupathi Raja.