Cafe Coffee Day (CCD), part of the Rs.300 crore Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company Ltd., plans to increase its retail outlets to 500 from 238 within a year from now. This expansion would call for an investment of around Rs 64.50 crore.

CCD would open 350 retail cafes by the mid next year. The retail chain currently has 165 cafes in the top eight cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune and Ahmedabad) across the country. The retail chain plans to further consolidate its operations in the eight cities. "We will be setting up 54 more cafes in the top eight cities in the next one year," Sudipta Sen Gupta, senior general manager, marketing, CCD, told reporters.

In Tamil Nadu, the retail chain would be setting up four more cafes in the state, three in Chennai and one in Coimbatore. In Chennai, CCD had recently launched a 'Lounge cafe' which is its new retail format cafe.

"The lounge cafe is a niche segment offering of CCD. The cafes will have divans, sofas, reclining chairs and video jukebox for customers to sit back and have a more leisurely coffee drinking experience," Ms Gupta. said.

CCD has launched two lounge cafes in Chennai and within a year's time, the retail chain plans to open 30 such cafes across the country.

"The decision to open a lounge cafe in any city wil I depend on the profile of the people. We will check the profile of the people staying in a particular area and then decided whether we should open a lounge cafe, a music cafe,a garden cafe or a book cafe," she said.

Lounge cafes would have an average size of around 2,000 sq. feet and 5,000 sq. feet compared to the regular cafes which have an average size of 800 sq. feet.

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