Nagpur: As Nagpurians celebrated dawn of New Year albeit under cloudy and numbing chill, the hoteliers had a field day and earned moolah. Following rain and shivering cold, many of the revellers preferred to celebrate New Year indoors mainly in warm, cosy homes. They ordered their choice of food from various hotels. And the hoteliers, taking advantage of the rush, played ‘tricks’ to earn easy money. A number of customers were supplied less quantity of food as compared to regular orders placed on other occasions.
Though the chilling weather failed to dampen spirit of revellers on the New Year’s Eve, the online food orders placed by many of them spoiled their New Year celebration to some extent as the food quantity was compromised. Owing to unprecedented weather which marked the last day of the year, most of the Nagurians booked their roofs as the revelry spot with music, booze and of course, food! However, the food orders placed online were reportedly found much less than the usual and thus ruined the mood.
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23 April 2025
While some found barely 6-7 small sized pieces of chicken inside a Butter Chicken ‘handi’ costing between Rs 500-600, some were shocked to discover 750 gms of Biryani packed in a small box and placed in standard size box. Thus the quantity of Biryani was compromised by the hotelier. On being contacted, the owners of respective food outlets refused to acknowledge the less quantity served as claimed by the revelers on the pretext of prestige of their hotel.
Deprived of food in sufficient quantity, some revellers had no option but to place couple of more orders. Some welcomed the New Year with “half tummy”, the young ones specially went to bed waiting for their food.
Speaking to Nagpur Today, Tejaswini Nayak said, owing to chill coupled with showers, she along with her family and friends decided to stay back at home to cherish the memories they made last year. But the celebrations soon went to south as the food ordered by them was found low in quantity.
“We were around 12-15 people at the roof top. Though we had snacks and starters in place on the New Year’s Eve, we were thinking to order main course at the stroke of the midnight to welcome the year 2020. We had ordered two Butter Chicken ‘handies’ from a Sadar based prominent hotel. However, soon as the order arrived we were taken aback as both the ‘handies’ had roughly around 6-7 small sized pieces of chicken compared to regular large size 12.
On being informed, the hotel staff ruled out such possibility. Left with no options we had to place new orders by pitching in more money. While others kept on waiting in the zest of the New Year, my younger siblings fell asleep before the next order could reach us,” said Tejaswini.
“I simply can’t understand or judge the mentality of the hotel owners serving online food deliveries on New Year’s Eve. Do they assume that the person who placed the order is drunk and can’t differentiate? Or they want to capitalize the situation of the New Year to earn extra bucks by compromising the quantity? We ordered snacks for “obvious” purposes.
However, were quite pissed to find only couple of chicken nuggets in it. We simply barged inside the food outlet which was couple of kilometres away from our home, and showed ordered food to the owner. Following which he provided us the standard quantity,” said Vaibhav Shigane.
Mohammad Aquib had travelled miles to cherish an end of the year 2019 along with his friends and family. He had placed orders for special Biryani between 750 gm and 1 kg. However, he informed Nagpur Today that the standard box which usually has the Biryani had another smaller box placed in it which had Biryani and a sweet.
On being informed the respective hotel, the owner claimed that the order has been placed right, if he has problem with the order feel free to weigh the box.
– Shubham Nagdeve
