சுந்தரம் காபி ஓர்க்ஸ்
180, Bazaar Street, Chidambaram. Photographed on 13 May 2024.
Sundaram Coffee Works opened on13 May1943
At 180, Bazaar Street in Chidambaram. It has not moved since.
Four dates
13 May 1943
The shop opens on Bazaar Street.
13 May 2023
The eightieth anniversary is marked in the shop.
Still on the wall a year later. 13 May 2024
These two photographs are taken. The eighty-first anniversary, to the day.
The exchange itself. 83 years
On the same street, under the same name, counted from that first day.
Everything happens in this room
Roasting, blending, grinding and packing are all ours. Nothing is ground until an order has been placed, and bulk orders are roasted after they come in.
That is the whole advantage a shop this size has, and it only works because the counter, the roaster and the scales are all in the same building.
The bag came first
Customers have carried this bag out of the shop for years. Printed on it: a woman pouring from a brass filter into a cup, the name in English, and under it சுந்தரம் காபி ஓர்க்ஸ் with the Bazaar Street address.
The emblem this site is built on is not a new idea. It restates a mark the shop already owned.
Who runs it
Rajagopalan N. runs Sundaram Coffee Works. More than 5,000 customers buy the coffee each month, by his own count, most of them from the counter in these photographs.
The shop is not GST registered. It has never needed to be, and the price you are told is the price.
நிரந்தரம்! தரம்! சுந்தரம்!