Did a Mumbai café shut down because its proprietor could not see past his list of no-nos?

Social media has belatedly woken up to the hilarity of a list put up by a now-defunct Parsi café in Mumbai about what its customers were not allowed to do on the premises.

That the eatery shut down in 2014 makes the list seem to be more of a vindication of what restaurants should not do, but many owners and customers even today would probably empathise with the maker of that list.

After all, which restaurateur really wants people to hold up tables while they play games on their mobiles or use their laptops?



Proscribing customers from putting their legs up on chairs and talking loudly may be necessitated by the type of clientele eateries target or attract, but sticking gum under tables, bringing in food from elsewhere, sleeping, running away, bargaining — haggling — over bills are all actions that would not find favour with restaurant owners of any stripe.

Personal quirks and suspicions of the list maker must have been behind the barring of matchsticks (despite cigarettes already being listed separately), brushing of teeth and flirting with the cashier, but the ban on asking for change — a common Indian request — is hard to condone.

The last interdiction on the list, however, was probably what led to the undoing of the establishment: ‘no free advice’. So, no one told him that it doesn’t do to have one’s Nos up in the air — or the wall.