From Family Catering to Full-Service Hospitality: How Mann & Salwa’s Strategic Banquet Launch Captures Ahmedabad’s Evolving Events Market

From Family Catering to Full-Service Hospitality: How Mann & Salwa’s Strategic Banquet Launch Captures Ahmedabad’s Evolving Events Market 

Ahmedabad’s wedding and celebration landscape is undergoing a quiet but significant transformation. Families that once organized events across disparate venues and caterers are increasingly seeking seamless, end-to-end hospitality experiences. In a strategic move that reflects this shift, the longstanding local brand Mann & Salwa has officially entered the venue business with the launch of a contemporary banquet hall in the city. This isn’t just an expansion—it’s a thoughtful evolution of a legacy, signaling a new chapter for one of Ahmedabad’s most trusted culinary names. 

The Legacy: A Foundation Built on Trust and Taste 

To understand the significance of this launch, one must first appreciate Mann & Salwa’s roots. For years, the brand has been synonymous with family celebrations across Ahmedabad. Founded as a family-run catering house, its reputation was built not on flashy marketing, but on consistency, reliability, and deep-rooted relationships. Generations of families have turned to them for milestone events—weddings, anniversaries, and religious ceremonies—where the food needed to be perfect, and the service, impeccable. 

This legacy is the brand’s most valuable asset. In a market flooded with new entrants, Mann & Salwa’s name carries decades of embedded trust. CEO Ridhi Choudhary emphasizes this, stating, “Values and trust have always been at the core of Mann & Salwa.” This foundational trust is now the platform upon which their new banquet venture is being built. 

The Strategic Shift: Why a Banquet Hall Now? 

The launch represents a deliberate pivot from a purely service-based catering model to an integrated venue-and-hospitality model. This shift is directly aligned with several evolving consumer behaviors in Ahmedabad’s events market: 

1. The Demand for Convenience: Modern families, often balancing busy professional lives, prefer partners who can manage the complexity of an event. A single provider for venue, food, and core services reduces logistical headaches immensely. 

1. The Experience Economy: Today’s hosts and guests seek more than just a meal; they seek an atmosphere. A dedicated space allows Mann & Salwa to control the ambiance, flow, and overall sensory experience of an event in a way that off-site catering cannot. 

1. Market Differentiation: While the catering space remains competitive, offering a proprietary venue creates a unique value proposition. It allows the brand to bundle services, ensuring quality control from kitchen to floor, and provides a tangible, ownable asset for marketing. 

The design philosophy of the new banquet space reflects this strategic intent. It leans into functionality, flexibility, and understated elegance—soft lighting, neutral textures, and clean layouts. This is a space designed not to overpower but to adapt, serving as a canvas for a wide variety of celebrations. It’s a clear positioning: comfort and reliability over opulent grandeur, aiming to become the default choice for repeat family occasions. 

Culinary Philosophy: The Unchanged Heart of the Operation 

Despite the new bricks-and-mortar dimension, Mann & Salwa’s leadership is clear: food remains the central pillar. What’s fascinating is how they’ve translated their signature catering approach into the banquet format. 

Their culinary model remains stubbornly, and wisely, consultation-driven. Menus are not pulled from a generic catalog but are finalized only after direct discussions with each family. This hyper-personalized approach ensures events retain a homemade, authentic feel. The focus stays on fresh ingredients, balanced preparation, and familiar recipes presented with subtle refinement. 

This continuity is crucial. It assures their existing clientele that the move into venues won’t dilute what made them special. The banquet kitchen becomes an extension of their catering kitchen—larger, perhaps, but guided by the same principles. 

The Bigger Picture: Positioning Within The Primo Collective 

The banquet launch is not an isolated move. It is a key piece of a larger, deliberate diversification strategy under The Primo collective. Mann & Salwa now operates as part of a portfolio that includes three distinct fine-dining concepts—Sora, Vyanj, and Sahtain. 

This structure is telling: 

• Mann & Salwa: Anchors the celebrations and legacy segment (catering + banquet). 

• Fine-Dining Concepts (Sora, Vyanj, Sahtain): Capture the premium gourmet and social dining market. 

• Together: They form a full-spectrum hospitality ecosystem. 

This allows the group to serve a single family across multiple needs—a weekday dinner at Sora, a wedding at the Mann & Salwa banquet, and a corporate event catered by their team. It’s a powerful model that builds cross-vertical loyalty and mitigates market risk. 

Insight: What This Reveals About Ahmedabad’s Market 

Mann & Salwa’s expansion is a bellwether for broader trends in India’s tier-1 and tier-2 cities. 

• Sophistication of Local Tastes: As CEO Ridhi Choudhary notes, “Ahmedabad is moving towards gourmet, multi-cuisine menus and experiential hospitality.” The city’s palate and expectations have evolved, demanding more curated experiences rather than just transactional services. 

• The Rise of the “Integrated Player”: The future of the events industry belongs to brands that can offer more than one piece of the puzzle. Standalone caterers or venues will face pressure from integrated players who provide a seamless, accountable, and high-quality end-to-end service. 

• Legacy as a Competitive Moats: In an age of digital-first brands, a legacy of trust built over decades in a community-centric city like Ahmedabad is an immense competitive advantage. Mann & Salwa is leveraging this emotional equity to enter a new physical space with a built-in audience. 

The Road Ahead: Challenges and Opportunities 

The launch is promising, but the path forward will involve navigating key challenges: 

• Maintaining Intimacy at Scale: Can the personalized, family-centric service that defined their catering be preserved in the higher-volume, more systematic environment of a banquet hall? Their consultation-driven menu process suggests they are aware of this risk. 

• Operational Complexity: Managing a fixed venue adds layers of operational complexity—facilities management, staffing for non-culinary roles, and real estate costs—that are different from a mobile catering business. 

• Competition: They now compete not just with other caterers, but with established banquet halls and hotel venues. 

However, the opportunities are significant. They are positioned to capture more value per customer by offering venue and food packages. They also strengthen client retention, making it easier for a family to book the same trusted provider for multiple events over years. Furthermore, the owned venue becomes a powerful brand showcase, a physical manifestation of their quality and ethos. 

Conclusion: A Thoughtful Evolution, Not a Reinvention 

Mann & Salwa’s foray into the banquet business is a masterclass in legacy-led growth. It is not a dramatic reinvention but a thoughtful, logical extension of everything the brand has stood for. By combining their unimpeachable culinary reputation with a versatile new physical space, they have created a compelling answer to the modern Ahmedabad family’s desire for hassle-free, high-quality celebrations. 

They are growing with their market, not just chasing it. As the city’s appetite for integrated, experience-focused hospitality grows, Mann & Salwa has positioned itself not as a new entrant, but as a familiar friend, now equipped to offer an even more complete service. In doing so, they are writing a blueprint for how other legacy regional brands can evolve to meet new demands without losing the soul that made them beloved in the first place.