4 min readChennaiJan 25, 2023 07:14 AM IST
First published on: Jan 24, 2023 at 08:00 AM IST
On a Tuesday morning at the Marina beach in Chennai, it is hard not to notice a bustling 56-year-old woman laughing and simultaneously shouting out instructions to a group of men setting up a shop.
The woman is Sundari S, or ‘Sundari Akka’, as she is fondly called by her customers. Her stall, known for seafood, is famously called ‘Sundari Akka kadai’ (Sundari Akka store). Fish curry meals, fried prawns, squids and crabs are among the items sold here.
Sundari S (Express photo)
The stall was started by Sundari and her husband in 2000 by cooking tiffins at home and distributing it to people in packets. Six months later, they put up a small stall for breakfast items like idlis and dosas. They also started selling food in the afternoon gradually. The prices were in the range of Rs 30 for rice with fish curry and Rs 10 for rice with an egg initially.
Today, even before the shop opens around noon, one can see a few customers trickling towards the stall with anticipation. Sundari has around 20 people helping her at the stall. One of them tells a customer to wait till the shop opens. They willingly wait until the shop is set up and the smell of food silently wafts through the salty air.
Sundari keeps collecting money from hands waiting in anticipation of a sumptuous meal. (Express photo)
As the day proceeds, people keep coming – in pairs, with kids, friends and colleagues. They form a huge line that keeps getting bigger around the token counter where Sundari sits.
She keeps collecting money from hands waiting in anticipation of a sumptuous meal. Sundari can be seen repeatedly telling customers to fall in line. She also maintains casual conversations with her customers, sometimes cracking a joke or two.
As and when the crowd becomes too much for Sundari to attend to, she can be heard saying, “Oh please have mercy on me! I haven’t even had my tiffin.”
As the day proceeds, people keep coming – in pairs, with kids, friends and colleagues. (Express photo)
Sundari wakes up at 1 every day to go to the Kasimedu fishing harbour in Chennai, which is about 5 kilometres from her house, to buy fish.
“If we go early, we can get fish according to our liking,” she says.
After that, she goes on to purchase vegetables for the day. Around 8.30 am, she says, her employees who help her out at the shop arrive to start preparing meals. Sundari has two sons who also help in the business.
“My sons also cook well. The eldest one studies hotel management,” she says.
Sundari says the investment in her stall is high, and that too with marginal profit. However, she says, she ensures her employees get a satisfactory salary. She is only happy to recruit more of them, she adds.
Sundari Akka Kadai is open on all days till around 9 pm. Sundari says that earlier it was closed on Sundays. It was when customers requested her to keep the shop open on the weekends that they started functioning on Sundays as well.
“After all we have come here to serve,” she says.
The stall has been a favoured food destination for many people coming from Bengaluru, Hosur, and Coimbatore as well as countries like France, Singapore, Malaysia and New Zealand, she says.
When asked about her future plans, she says that she has no plans of expanding the business to other places lest the quality of the food goes down.
Perhaps, the Marina will witness hordes of anticipatory faces and satisfactory smiles for a long time to come.
The stall is located at the Marina Beach (Express photo) 
Sundari S (Express photo)
Sundari keeps collecting money from hands waiting in anticipation of a sumptuous meal. (Express photo)
As the day proceeds, people keep coming – in pairs, with kids, friends and colleagues. (Express photo)
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