The wisdom of Brahmin’s Coffee Bar

Itrsquos easy to miss Brahminrsquos Coffee Bar because it has no signboard To be accurate its signboard is frayed and weatherworn the only word visible after all these years is lsquoBrahminrsquo To make things worse the signboard is tucked into a niche visible only to those whorsquore anyway about to enter this triumphantly popular Bengaluru eateryNot a problem Those who eat here know where to come and exactly what to expect The menu nailed to a wall behind the cashier is the shortest in Bengaluru very possibly India It offers only four itemsmdashidli vada khara bhath and kesari bhathmdashalong with a choice of coffee tea or milkNo dosasNo upmaNo uttapamNo pongalNo seating You stand and eatOh and no branches Therersquos only one Brahminrsquos Coffee Bar on the planet and itrsquos stood in exactly the same corner of Bengalurursquos Malleswaram district since 1965 when it was founded by Nagesh Adiga His grandnephew sits today below the framed photo of his ancestor His uncle Radhakrishna runs the show nowThe Brahminrsquos Coffee Bar got me thinking about menus and then choices How many items are ideal for a menu Do longer menus empower customers or overpower them How many choices do we really need to get on with life Is there a golden number or is more and more choices just better and betterThe average Udipi restaurant today will list over a dozen dosa variants Tarla Dalalrsquos website has 120 promiscuous dosas with onenightstands like the Szechuan Chopsuey Dosa and the Dosa Lasagne Starbucks has over 800 customisable beverage combinationsIs such unlimited choice welcome or is more actually lessThe golden number according to menu engineer Gregg Rapp is seven More than that and customers will be confused ldquoAnd when they get confused theyrsquoll typically default to an item theyrsquove had beforerdquo he saysAbout 60 per cent of a restaurantrsquos sales come from just three or four top sellers in each category concludes Banger Smith after evaluating hundreds of menusLetrsquos fly beyond food to milk and marriage You must decide first whether you even want bovine milk or vegan alternatives like almond soy hemp oats and rice among others Go with cow milk and you must choose between fatfree lactosefree full fat skimmed reduced fat 2 per cent milk and some othersYou will stand there catatonic yearning for the tabelas of your childhoodTake marriage My parents did not choose each other Their parents did the choosing after checking out perhaps four of five other potential matches But todayrsquos Tinders flood you with scrolling choices of gorgeous faces replacing insight and depth with cosmetics flawless glowing Photoshopped images and useless summariesSomdashare we adrift in a sea of too much choice Do we need a simpler world and fewer options Perhaps a Brahminrsquos dating appIn 2000 Professor Sheena Iyengar of Columbia University conducted what is known now as the lsquojam studyrsquo Her team placed 24 jams in a busy supermarket offering free tasting About 60 per cent of shoppers stopped to sample but a mere 3 per cent bought the jamWhen only six jams were displayed though fewer people stopped but sales shot up tenfold to 30 per cent The experiment captured the attention of psychologist Barry Schwartz and in 2004 he wrote The Paradox of Choice about how limiting and stressful endless choice can beDo a search of Google and in milliseconds yoursquore flooded with an indiscriminate deluge of answers Search for a recipe and spend the next hour sorting through variations Search for a hotel and go stircrazy trying to sort through thousands of contradictory customer reviewsHow unbounded choice affects you depends on whether yoursquore looking for a quick choice or the best choice Maximisers wanting only the very best are doomed before they start because a perfect choice is impossible They are cursed to wonder forever if more research might have led to an even better choiceThe paradox of choice came under fire when other studies showed the opposite more options led to more sales and satisfaction When yoursquore househunting or buying a car for instance you donrsquot want the Brahmin choice of just four options Choice it seems is a zerosum gamemdashit helps as much as it hinders roughly half the time Science also shows that when it comes to products people hate being offered just one option are relieved with two and happiest with threeIf wersquore talking dosas a sada dosa a masala dosa and a ghee masala dosa might be all the menu needsThe idlis emerged steaming hot and soft as wishes bathed in chutney I also sampled the vada laced with flavours of ginger and pepper perfected over five decadesldquoWhy donrsquot you add dosas to the menurdquo I asked the grandnephewldquoNobody asks for dosasrdquo he says scratching his stubble and counting more cash ldquoPeople are happy with our four items See the crowdrdquoHe looks up like someone about to commit a sin and whispers ldquoWe donrsquot even serve sambarmdashand nobody caresrdquoYou can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper