Brewing Cafe Culture in Patna

5 min readSep 14, 2021

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Coffee is not just a drink anymore. It is one of the most traded commodities in the world. Some studies claim that it is the most consumed beverage after water! Coffee is a cult in itself. This post talks about how coffee is an important catalyst in growth of a city and how Patna(capital of Bihar)is embracing it.

I moved to Patna this year in the end of April just before the second wave of the pandemic in India. It is my hometown but I equally love Pune and Bengaluru. One the thing which was in back of my head was the amazing cafe culture which the city of Pune and Bengaluru have!

One of my favourite places in Bengaluru — Third Wave Coffee Roasters. Pic Source — https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/503642_GyBsyvohqURHYmmQFqQQbzamrKTRPqulX7-Whl46B_8.jpg

Whenever I visit Bengaluru, I make sure that I drop off to the Koramangala Branch of Third Wave Coffee Roasters .

In Pune, I love visiting various places like —

Starbucks, Koregaon Park
Vohuman Cafe
Tea Villa Caffe, etc.

How Cafes act as a catalyst in growth of a society?

I will try to answer this questions point by point.

Cafes empower Women

Growth of any city can be fairly estimated by how much women are contributing to the GDP. The free-er/empowered the women, the progressive is the society.

Cafes provide a great place to women to sit and work without being judged or manhandled.

Cafes often act as a symbol of western culture, I think we can unequivocally agree that women are more empowered in countries like US and UK as compared to cities like Patna/Muzaffarpur etc(the situation is changing rapidly).

I am writing this blog after visiting multiple cafes in Patna(after getting vaccinated and with mask). I was fascinated with the crowd and people I saw there. Women wearing whatever they like, hanging with a group of friends and ordering whatever they want. It felt so liberating to see this in my city.

Cafes give youth a safe place

I have spent my childhood in this city in constant worry of either getting kidnapped or getting looted.

I remember the times when It was such a big deal in Patna to see women driving!

Apart from being famous for breeding The great one-horned rhinoceros, becoming the first ever zoo where hippopotamus gave birth, etc. Sanjay Gandhi Botanical and Zoological Garden was also famous for being a place where couples used to sit behind trees.

It is very easy to judge a society for not being modern enough but these issues are multi-faceted.

Cafes, however, provide couples/friends especially of different gender to sit together, be civil, cross-pollinate ideas etc. This is a major catalyst because rapidly the youth of my city is growing in a very different surrounding than me, and I am very happy for it.

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Cafes boost tech culture

Slowly, the cafes in Patna will start to attract freelancers, coders, startup founders etc.

It provides a great place for informal professional meetups. There was no such place before this. There are several meetups which happen in cities like Pune and Bengaluru but there were no such hosting such events in Patna.

I have made tons of contact in Pune and Bengaluru just by sitting in popular cafes and reaching out interesting people non-intrusively.

Belive me or not, I got my first job via a friend I made sitting in Fergusson College road CCD.

Cafes act as a little elite, non-discriminatory, mini-townhall where you can find writers, entrepreneurs, technical advocates, programmers very easily.

With more resurgence of cafes in Patna, a lot of digital nomads will return to their city and will slowly enrich the economy of Bihar.

Cafes boost night life of a city

Yes, you heard me right. I remember once, I was hanging out with a couple of school friends in Bengaluru in Costa Coffee in Koramangala. I saw a gorgeous women sitting in party dress finishing up her work on her macbook at around 11:30 PM. Post that her group of friends came and they went to a club nearby, I could see them.

Cafes often become a mid-stop for people before going to clubs often this is true for working people.

The opening of tons of restaurants and cafes point to the fact that extortion and other goon-like behaviour have greatly reduced in Bihar. The infrastructure of Bihar has also improved greatly, the amazing Atal Path, its construction got completed one month before the expected date, rare event! right?

Here are some few must visit cafes in Patna —

I really hope that Patna keeps up its progress as it has shown in previous year. If similar progress persists then in 10 years, the face of Bihar might change for good! :)

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