Zepto Café shuts down operations in 44 stores across North India due to supply crunch, staff woes

Aadit Palicha-led Zepto has paused its Zepto Café services in over seven North Indian cities because of a supply shortage and employee unavailability, according to media reports.

Zepto Café halts operations in major cities

Sources said the disruption has affected 44 of the company’s dark stores, including those in the Delhi NCR belt, Agra, Meerut, Haridwar, Gorakhpur, Mohali, Amritsar, and Ghaziabad regions.

“A total of 44 stores have been impacted and services should resume by Q2, during the July-September quarter,” the source added.

The Delhi NCR belt is especially crucial for the quick commerce unicorn because Eternal-owned Zomato and Blinkit dominate it.

Zepto Café offers ready-to-consume snacks and beverages such as tea, coffee, puffs, and pizza and aims to be an alternative to traditional food delivery services offered by Zomato and Swiggy.

Also read: Zomato introduces new ‘Long distance service fee’ for deliveries beyond 4 km (startuppedia.in)

Zepto CEO's big claim

As claimed by CEO Aadit Palicha, the café unit had reached a milestone of processing 1 lakh daily orders, fetching a USD 100 million annualised GMV run-rate, with a steady-state gross margin of 50 per cent.

 As part of the shutdown, Zepto moved most of its kitchen staff to other stores, but 15 of them quit as they did not agree to relocate, company insiders said. [Source: NDTV Profit]

“Services should resume by Q2, during the July–September quarter,” reports say.

Also read: 'This data may be a little misleading': Nithin Kamath on rise of tier 2 and 3 city investors (startuppedia.in)