Pour yourself an oat-milk-agave-matcha-deep-roast-latte and think of how far we’ve come. India’s café scene only took off in the 2000s. Cafés started out as places were we learnt to say ESpresso, not EXpresso, and pretend our gang was just like Chandler, Phoebe and the rest. The music was upbeat, the menu and vibe was buzzy. The mugs were gigantic, the sofas arranged for groups of six and more.
All that’s changed. And for much of the day, it’s being kept afloat by women. The women are pretty quiet, so, perhaps you haven’t noticed. “These are individual women, quieter groups of three at best, who drop in, bit by bit, during the daylight hours. In the mornings, while male patrons take their cappuccinos to-go, women are popping in to do a quick Zoom meeting over a green juice, and then settling in – book, laptop, headphones and all – for a day of being unbothered. At lunch, it’s girlfriends catching up, ordering half the menu, plus dessert, and lingering on. In the early evening, office-going women walk in, plonk the handbag on the spare seat, and escape rush hour outside with a snack and iced hibiscus tea. By sundown, as men and women fill up the place, no one realises how much business women have already drummed up at the same tables. In response, cafés are adapting to women too. Corner office It’s no surprise that women are finding everyday refuge in a café. It’s comfy, cheaper than a restaurant and better lit than a bar, with quiet corners to disappear into. The staff don’t bother patrons, and the menu goes from sugar-free-dairy-free beverages to full-blown dessert. And it has what few third spaces have: Wi-Fi and a clean toilet. “Regardless of whether she is married or single, there’s always some domestic duty that needs doing, someone interrupting a thought, even a doorbell ringing. So, merely having a place close to home or the office, where a woman can now sit undisturbed for a long time, is largely the appeal. “I’m there almost every day! “Even when I’m done, I stay for two to three hours. It’s the only chunk of the day when she feels truly free of her responsibilities. The best sign that a café’s formula is working: When one woman shares her safe space with another woman.
Psycho-oncologist Chaitanya Agrawal, 26, says her local café is where she can have a slow, grounding session with herself after work. From HT Brunch, August 29, 2026 Follow us on www.instagram.com/htbrunch
“This is not the noisy kitty-party crowd that used to pre-order set-lunches for 17 at restaurants,” says hospitality-marketing professional Saroj Shah. “Women account for approximately 60% of our customer base,” says Vandita Purohit, founder of Mauji – The Time Café in Pune and Nagpur. “For a woman running a small business, working remotely, or even looking to unwind, the home isn’t always the best place to get work done,” points out Shah. She usually gets a coffee with a “small bite on the side” and doodles in her mini sketchbook until the order arrives. “One of our regulars brought her daughter, who was visiting, to Mauji, simply to show her the place she spends time as she likes,” recalls Purohit. “She called it a ‘home away from home’ and said ‘there’s so much sukoon (peace) here.
Not only is the indie café of today mellow and chill, it’s designed for smaller groups and solos.
“I have to explain that this is a demographic that has more control over their money than ever before, wants to be seduced by a new item on the menu, won’t make a racket, and won’t leave a mess behind. Post-pandemic-era cafés have been leaning into that fuzzy-not-buzzy vibe. When Shah meets clients looking to open a café, she informs them that a large part of their daytime, weekday revenue will come from this quiet stream of women customers. Why wouldn’t you want their business? So, while cafés have started stocking their bookshelves with cosy-fiction titles. Shah gets them to go a step further. “The old formula to attract women customers was to ‘make it pink’ – pink suitcases, pink razors, pink laptops. Women never wanted pink things! Her focus is on making sure the washrooms are always clean and training the staff to stay approachable but not heavy-handed on service. There’s no pressure to upsell or order more during that time. What keeps them returning is the sense of belonging. “We don’t just know you, we also know your dog, your child, your family. Agrawal recalls that one evening, after a difficult day at work, she walked into her regular café on the verge of tears, knowing that she wouldn’t be disturbed. A staff member came over with a cookie and a note that read: ‘We all have bad days; we got you. Here’s a treat from us. They don’t want to hear machines that grind beans noisily or to place a beverage order that requires too much decision-making.
“They’re always surprised,” she says. What they do want, she says, are solo seats, low-sugar drinks, more fresh-ingredient salads on the menu, smaller dessert portions (“We need mini pastries in these places”), drinks that arrive frothy and pretty, for sipping, not chugging down. “And staff that is trained to greet women but not make unnecessary eye contact after that”. At the Mauji cafés, “the first-half of weekdays, is when we see a large number of women working or studying from our café,” says Purohit’s. Join the grind At Greg’s Café in Mumbai (@GregsCafeMumbai), founder Dristi Wadhawan-Shinde says women dominate the daytime, afternoon crowd, often coming in pairs or small groups. Our staff remembers your order and your story,” she says. Shah says that the obsession over artisanal roasts, local beans and coffee-extracting techniques are what make a café stand out in an increasingly crowded market. But the daytime crowd simply wants a place where “the coffee is decent but they really came for the vibe”.
