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Updated – June 19, 2024 02:32 pm IST
Published – June 16, 2024 10:49 pm IST
A view of street food at the fifth avenue in Anna Nagar, Chennai | Photo Credit: B. Velankanni Raj
Fifth Avenue at Anna Nagar is a celebration of desserts after 7 p.m. It has been a daily ritual for many residents with a sweet tooth to visit the dessert street. All vendors here need an FSSAI licence to sell their treats.
The first to set up shop around 6.45 p.m. is Pragna’s Sugar Spell. It is a cart with home-made mango and blueberry cakes, and a strawberry cup dessert, a nod to the viral chocolate strawberry dip of London’s Borough Market.
“I used to be addicted to soap operas, but seeing the youngsters here motivated me to start my own cart,” says Pragna, who transitioned from taking part orders to running a cart. “My family initially looked down on me for selling on the road, but this is my joy. If college students can run their own cart, so can I,” she adds.
Pragna’s Sugar Spell is the first shop to open around 6.45 p.m. She sells home-made mango and blueberry cakes, and a strawberry cup dessert. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The fairy lights and LED sign boards adorn the street, and a creative solution to save on electricity and cart price is to sell from car trunks.
Kavya R.’s Delicute, a dessert shop on wheels, draws a crowd for her brownies and jarcakes, with her grandmother and brother cheering her for successfully completing a week of sales after being a home-baker for years.
Manikandan’s Mom Made Cakes, another car-trunk shop, offers what he calls a ‘taste initiative’. “My wife has been a home- baker for around eight years, and I handle the sales. We keep prices minimal, like our red velvet piece costs only ₹70. It is our way to introduce people to our pastries and encourage them to order larger cakes,” says Manikandan.
Walking down Fifth Avenue is a delightful experience with an array of desserts at every step. However, Nithesh and Megal, theatre artists in their 20s and owners of Layers of Euphoria, explain a peculiar challenge. “Our sales are going really well, but it has been a challenge to find loyal customers to come back to our cart. This is because the whole street is dessert-cart street, and a few customers have been tired of looking at the same chocolatey things. So, we are thinking of introducing savouries,” they say. They are trying to break into the film industry as actors. “Meanwhile, baking just happened after I got inspired by a protagonist in a movie baking a cake,” says Nithesh.
For those who need a break from pies, muffins, and brownies, Kreation with Kreme offers a twist with ice-creams. Pradeep and Kavitha sell fruit-ice creams, like mango ice cream inside a mango fruit, and orange ice cream in an orange. “This concept has been around for a while, but isn’t widely known. So, we decided to bring it here,” says Pradeep, who quit an IT job to pursue catering. When most of them say they have been home-bakers for long, bringing their own push-carts has been all about turning streets into a dessert wonderland.
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