Mumbai’s floating restaurants to open from Monday

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, November 18

Two floating restaurants complete with bars, banquet halls and open decks will open for business off the iconic Gateway of India from Monday, according to the company which is behind the venture.

The two restaurants, Queensline Sea Yah and Queensline Neverland, were inaugurated by Union Minister for Surface Transport Nitin Gadkari on Saturday.

The two floatels will be anchored about one kilometre from the Gateway of India. Each of them has a capacity of 475 persons each.

A third floatel will soon begin operations off Girgaum Chowpatty, according to entrepreneur Shripriya Dalmia Thirani who brought the vessels from Istanbul.

The Mumbai Port Trust, which is partner in the joint venture, will be sharing the revenues with the operator of the restaurant.

Patrons will have to pay a cover charge of Rs 2500 each to spend three hours aboard the two floatels, according to the company. The owners of the floatels hope to make additional money by selling food and drinks to patrons.

The first cruise will begin at 8 pm on Monday.

After the Bhoomi Poojan for the venture, Gadkari said Mumbai has the potential to develop cruise tourism.

He added that the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation would be building a rope-way to link Sewri in mainland Mumbai to Elephanta Island at a cost of Rs 800 crores. The minister said the government would be floating a tender for the project which is expected to be completed by the year 2022.