India’s cafés are offering more than coffee to build customer loyalty
Mokai, a popular café in Mumbai, is leveraging social media and celebrity collaborations to maintain its status in a competitive market. The founder emphasizes that while digital visibility drives initial traffic, long-term customer loyalty is built through quality food and hospitality.
Why it matters
It highlights the evolving business model of the hospitality industry where digital marketing and physical experience must be integrated to survive.
When I visited Mokai 2.0, the popular café’s expansive new home in Bandra’s Pali Hill, a few months after it opened in March 2026, I expected what many viral cafés tend to deliver: impeccable aesthetics, a formidable social media presence and food that merely held its own.
Mokai, which first opened on Chapel Road (also in Bandra) in 2024, had already become a celebrity hangout. Its Instagram account has 62,600 followers, while Suraksha, one of its baristas, has emerged as an unlikely social media star.
Floating matcha bar inside Mokai in Mumbai | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Mokai’s rise says something about what it takes to sell a cup of coffee in 2026. An Instagrammable interior is now merely the entry requirement. In an increasingly crowded café market, social media must generate FOMO (fear of missing out) and keep the café in public conversation after the opening buzz has faded.
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