It's all about the good life

LEISURE: Besides being a real estate developer, Vipin Luthra is working steadily to make it big in restaurants, hotels and clubs.

In early 2000, if you had known Vipin Luthra, you would have automatically associated him with Geoffery's, one of the first stand-alone pubs in the capital (that now has outlets all over the country).

Today, seven years later, the restaurant business is very much in place "" Luthra also runs the Oriental Bloom chain of restaurants in the NCR "" but there are other, bigger things occupying his mind.

"The restaurant business is for the pigeons," Luthra was told some years ago. Today, he says, he has finally realised the truth of that statement. So while ventures such as his restaurants will continue to grow, the ambition is clearly elsewhere.

Luthra, who is managing director of Ansal Colonisers and Developers (Susheel Ansal is his father-in-law), is in the process of tying up with the real-estate major for a separate venture "" which will involve, among other things, the development and management of hotels and golf courses and even a "palace".

The company will be investing Rs 100 crore in the next three years in development, other than land, of seven properties in Lucknow, Amritsar, Mohali, Jodhpur and Greater Noida.

While the emphasis is on hotels on top of malls at many of these places, at Greater Noida and Lucknow these will come up in conjunction with golf courses, while in Jodhpur a heritage palace has already been acquired to be run as a hotel.

For someone who began with an investment of Rs 1.7 crore in just one restaurant, this is clearly the big league.

But Luthra is a man who, according to himself, wears three hats "" and heads three companies. Restaurants and hotels apart, clubs is another area where he sees a potential for his operations.

Anyone who has been to The Palms Town and Country Club in Gurgaon will be immediately struck by the fact of how hotel-like it really is "" not just in terms of the rooms, but also the facilities and services.

Luthra, who began by taking over the Palam Vihar club, intends to grow a whole chain of the Palms brand now "" in Lucknow and Greater Noida the clubs will be part of the golf courses "" becoming one of the first players to take the concept of a "five-star" club forward.

"If you compare all the old type of clubs, member-owned, committee-run, you would realise how, though their location is usually A class, the maintenance and facilities are D class."

With squash and tennis courts, first-rate gyms (Gurgaon has a tie-up with Ozone, for instance, the premier fitness club in Delhi), quality entertainment, including supper theatre and rock shows, not to mention the F&B and staying facilities, the new chain of Palms is to work on a model where even if the location is B to C class, the facilities will be A. So are you ready to be a member?