Curated Cool With A Hollow Heart: Noida’s Emerging Café Culture

Posted on September 16, 2025

Décor-first design with cute walkways, glass façades, whitewashed walls, pastel palettes, warm lighting, leafy plants, rattan chairs, ceramic tableware, and an abundance of photo corners. Courtyards and terrace decks with umbrellas, vines, partitions and swings. Industrial-chic cues in exposed brick, microcement finishes, and neon signs flashing kitschy quotes like “Good vibes only” or “But first, coffee”. It’s a familiar playbook you could trace back to a Pinterest board.

The vibes shift from boho courtyards and Balinese tropics to Japanese minimalism, Mediterranean whites, Parisian posh, and Scandinavian simplicity. All stitched together for the camera, not for the food or service. Staged, temporary, and often impractical — but it hardly matters, as long as the pictures look good.

This is the new face of Noida, the south-eastern suburb of India’s capital, Delhi — where a café wave is trying hard to shake off the city’s utilitarian past in favour of curated cool. On social media, the transformation looks complete. In reality, it still feels hollow at the core.

Aesthetic Illusions

Drive down the newly developed sectors along the Noida–Greater Noida Expressway and you’ll see the transformation in full display. What was once a landscape of empty plots, hardware stores, shanty kiosks, and repair shops has morphed into a curated strip of wannabe chic cafés and diners. Neighbourhoods that once epitomised Delhi NCR’s no-nonsense pragmatism now flaunt establishments that try hard to pass for outposts in Canggu or Thonglor.

The ambitions are lofty. Flush with rising incomes, a wave of globe-trotting entrepreneurs come back with borrowed aesthetics and half-baked ideas. What they build are cafés that excel at looking good, but fail spectacularly at being good. The décor sparkles just long enough for a curated reel before collapsing into the hollow truth: it’s mostly just a stage set without a play.

Scratch beneath the varnish, and the illusion crumbles. You’ll find uninspired food priced like fine dining, dressed up for Instagram but stripped of imagination and joy, served with all the warmth of a vending machine. Ask about the ingredients in your lasagna, and you’ll get a blank stare — at Kokoy, it was more baked vegetable than lasagna. Coffee never arrives hot; it’s invariably lukewarm. Neon lights and photo corners may distract, but the mediocrity is impossible to hide. However earnestly you try to embrace the vibe, the hollowness rings louder than the music.

A Tale Of Two Cafés: Kokoy and Curry Crown

It’s a thought that’s floated around for a while, but one afternoon on Roastery Street made it clear. The stretch — packed with new eateries desperate to channel the café-trail charm of holiday destinations — offers plenty to feast visually, but little in terms of taste or soul. The original Roastery Coffee House is still a safe bet. But our experience with two adjoining cafés, Kokoy and Curry Crown, both products of social media buzz, showed us why Noida’s café rush feels more like a hustle than genuine hospitality.

Whilst seated inside Kokoy on a rainy afternoon, we watched in disbelief as a massive metal garden umbrella from neighbouring Curry Crown came crashing down on a brand-new Volvo EX30 — our review vehicle for the week. It was parked exactly where Kokoy’s staff had directed us, in the paved bay outside the café designed to hold four cars. The heavy metal frame — an unauthorised and unsafe temporary structure placed casually beside the hostess counter — struck the car’s A-pillar and left it damaged instantly.

Both establishments immediately went on the defensive. We were seated at Kokoy, yet the damage had been caused by a structure belonging to Curry Crown. Convenient for each side to deny accountability. The managers pushed blame back and forth, doing their best to evade responsibility. But this wasn’t an act of God. It was negligence, plain and simple, and someone needed to own up. Instead, they chose not to. Requests to speak with the owners were stonewalled with the same refrain: not authorised, not allowed. Eventually, the matter escalated to the point where police intervention became unavoidable.

When the cops arrived and demanded to speak with the owners, Curry Crown’s manager, Sagar Kundan, promptly put his owner Paras Teotia on the line. What followed was a masterclass in duplicity. To the police, Paras assured cooperation and promised to “take responsibility.” To us, he sneered: “It’s hardly any damage. Do what you want, file a complaint.” Here was a man who owned an establishment, authorised an unsafe structure that could have cracked a skull, and yet dismissed the consequences with the arrogance of a gym-bro entrepreneur. This wasn’t a slip in judgment. It was him channelling his inner Noida superhero. His manager Sagar, who was at the scene was no better; equally odious, and adamant that their unauthorised installation posed no danger.

Kokoy’s manager, Amit Upadhyay, was technically present but entirely absent in spirit. New on the job, he saw no reason to support his guests during an emergency, nor did he think it important to contact his owner. After much coaxing, he called the owner, Arun Kuntal — who never spoke to us directly and simply instructed him to “sort it out” at his level. Sorting out meant waiving the food bill, even though the damage was likely ten times its value. Hospitality, anyone?

Together, the management and staff of both establishments embodied the worst of hospitality behaviour — evasive, aggressive, and indifferent. It was the kind of encounter that makes you regret ever walking in, where accountability seemed optional and courtesy nonexistent.

The Hardware Store Mentality

The casual arrogance on display was staggering. When confronted with clear negligence that could easily have injured someone, Mr. Teotia’s response was textbook strong-arm posturing: public promises of cooperation to authorities, followed by private contempt for the victims. Mr. Kuntal, meanwhile, didn’t consider it appropriate to intervene when the incident happened. This wasn’t just about poor ethics or sloppy training. It revealed a deeper bankruptcy of character masquerading as business acumen. A trait that often shows up across the new-money suburban hospitality scene.

What both men failed to grasp is that this wasn’t merely mishandling a situation. It was about public safety. Carelessly installed temporary structures, coupled with a refusal to accept responsibility, pose risks that extend far beyond forgettable food. Can they even manage an on-site emergency? What happens if a glass façade shatters and injures someone? If a chandelier falls? If a guest suffers a severe allergic reaction? You’re left wondering whether these establishments are capable of handling anything beyond curating their next Instagram post.

The larger malaise is the rise of entrepreneurs who believe running an upmarket café requires the same skills as operating a hardware store. Unlike legacy hospitality, their approach reduces the craft of service to transactional retail, where customer complaints are treated as irritants rather than obligations.

The Cultural Disconnect

For decades, Noida was the pragmatic choice — cheaper than Delhi, more organised than Gurgaon, efficient if not glamorous. The post-COVID café boom represented a chance to add some sheen and soul to this rather middle-class efficiency. Instead, these establishments embody the worst of both worlds: the aggressive attitudes that define Delhi NCR’s rougher edges, combined with the superficial polish of modern consumer culture.

Run by people who represent a toxic synthesis of old attitudes and new pretensions, they channel all the aggression of traditional business culture — wrapped in Edison bulbs and rattan furniture.

The People Problem

The root problem in suburbs like Noida lies with the people, and it’s magnified in hospitality settings. Much of what appears glamorous in Noida’s food scene — cafés, bars, clubs, pubs — has the unmistakable air of B-grade cinema and its audience. Everything feels temporary and staged, lacking the lived-in gravitas of genuine venues. And it takes one misstep for things to go downhill fast.

Walk into a bar like Piano Man or Sidecar in Delhi. Or a pizzeria like Leo’s. Then visit any Noida equivalent, and the difference is noticeable. Delhi’s premier establishments feel authentic, safe, and intentional — built by people who understand hospitality as experience, not just optics. Noida’s versions mimic the aesthetics without the soul, looking the part from a distance but crumbling under scrutiny. For their owners, cafés are just another business — no different from a neighbourhood gym or beauty parlour.

Built For Attention, Not Intention

When appearance takes precedence over substance, when influencer tie-ups create buzz and curated feeds drive engagement, the basics of food and service get ignored. The illusion eventually crumbles as real experiences fail to live up to the hype.

The missed opportunity is glaring. Kokoy and Curry Crown, like many others in Noida, could have created genuinely top-class casual dining spaces — blending aesthetic appeal with quality produce and operational excellence. Instead, they rely on misplaced confidence and thinly veiled aggression, riding the wave of new residential condos and office complexes that guarantee a stream of first-time customers and Sodexo card holders. This may sustain them for a couple of years, but repeat visits? Those will be few and far between.

The Path Forward

For entrepreneurs in this space, the lesson is clear: hospitality is about people, not pictures. It’s about putting soul into the experience, not pretence. It means creating moments that exceed expectations, building systems that prioritise safety, and fostering a culture where problems are addressed, not deflected.

Accountability isn’t weakness; it’s the foundation of trust. A single negative experience can undo months of positive marketing. Most importantly, hospitality is a long game. Instagram likes won’t save you once the hollowness beneath the surface becomes apparent.

The Broader Implications

Noida’s café scene can either keep coasting on superficial appeal towards inevitable irrelevance, or it can evolve into something eclectic, authentic, and truly worthy of its residents’ ambitions. The choice rests with entrepreneurs, but the verdict will ultimately be delivered by customers.

A café visit shouldn’t involve police reports, ruined property, and utter indifference from those in charge. Kokoy and Curry Crown proved otherwise. Noida’s hospitality may be evolving, but for now, it’s hollow at the heart. Until they get it right, this isn’t hospitality — it’s a hazard, and you enter at your own peril.

Note: The incident took place on 3 September 2025. Police intervention was logged under Event ID P03092508182. Curry Crown’s owner, Pradeep Teotia, has not contacted us since, despite promising a call or meeting the next day. Kokoy’s owner, Arun Kuntal, sent us this message the following day: “I am really sorry about what happened yesterday. It was an unexpected storm, and the umbrella from the neighbour’s side caused the damage, but I agree we should have stood by you better in that moment.” He also called us later to apologise and assured us of a resolution after consulting Mr. Teotia, but that too dissolved into silence. Accountability lies in actions, not words. Should either of them respond with meaningful action, this article will be updated accordingly.