The story of Santosh Chat Corner, Bangalore’s traffic-stopping chaat shop

At about five in the evening, the onset of Bengaluru’s infamous peak-hour traffic, a white Mercedes Benz is parked diagonally opposite Santosh Chat Counter, a small but bustling chaat shop near the intersection of Infantry Road and Union Street. The car does not move despite the harsh honking of other motorists. Traffic begins to clog. The honks increase. A Santosh Chat employee rushes to the car, hands over a parcel, and gets some cash. The traffic eases after this transaction. But for a few minutes, the tiny chaat shop brings a part of Infantry Road to a standstill. And, this is not a one-off occurrence.

Santosh, the owner of Santosh Chat, migrated to Bengaluru in 1994 because of plummeting sugarcane prices in his native place, Bihar. His father, a sugarcane farmer, struggled to make ends meet. After doing odd jobs for two years, he opened the chaat shop with his brothers in Vasanth Nagar before moving to Infantry Road. “Back then, you won’t see this much traffic,” he says in Hindi, recalling his early days in the city, “The roads were deserted in the evenings. We used to make just a few hundred rupees daily, selling about 10 chaat items.”

Santhosh Chaat centre on Infantry road, Shivajinagar, in Bengaluru
| Photo Credit:
Murali Kumar K | The Hindu

The size of the shop remains more or less the same. But the business has grown exponentially. The per-day profit is now about four thousand (though a regular customer tells us it could be much more!) The menu has quadrupled as well. There are close to 50 items to choose from.

The best-seller, according to Santosh, is the Special Mixture. So, we decide to try that. It comes in a white ceramic plate, its circumference sprinkled with spices of different colours. We take a spoonful. In the next few seconds, fireworks of flavours go off inside our mouths. The taste and texture of crushed samosas, spiced green peas masala, thick sweet curd, mixture, and puffed rice water your mouth, making you want more. Samosa chaat and masala puri are the other in-demand items. But, apart from the mouth, they make your eyes water, too.

Many dishes on the menu are on the spicier side. This is why many customers follow up the chaat with a small cup of gulab jamoon. But we found the Gulab Jamoon cloying. It seems the son of a sugarcane farmer likes sweetness in abundance.