After 36 hours of intense search operation, the corpse of Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) founder-chairman VG Siddhartha, who went missing, was found on Wednesday, in the Netravati River in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka.
Born to a family of coffee planters in Karnataka's Chikmagalur, Siddhartha set up India's first coffee chain CCD in Bengaluru in the year 1996. He opened the first CCD store in the same year at then Bangalore's busy Brigade Road. A cup of coffee and an hour of internet surfing used to cost Rs 100 at that time.
Photo by AFP
In a sad turn of events, ahead of its founder, this first coffee station also breathed for the last time in April 2019. The reason for it to shutdown isn’t a different story than many outlets. The increasing number of other outlets gave in a tough competition and eventually reduced footfall for CCD.
Reports suggest that in memory of their late founder, all of CCDs outlets will remain shut for the say, A source mentioned by IANS, said that, “"All our 1,750 retail outlets in about 240 cities will remain shut for the day as a mark of respect to our founder-chairman Siddhartha who is no more.”
Photo by AFP
Siddhartha was the son-in-law of senior BJP leader S.M. Krishna, who was the external affairs minister during the UPA-2 government (2009-12) and former chief minister of the state from October 1999 to May 2004. Siddhartha leaves behind wife Malavika Hegde and two sons.
