Pune’s Famous Restaurant Vaishali Owner Jagannath Shetty Passes Away
Pune, 19th December 2021: Jagannath B. Shetty (91), a pioneer in the business of restaurants in Pune, passed away today due to old age. He was admitted to Prayag Hospital in the Deccan area.
He established the immensely popular trinity Vaishali, Roopali and Amrapali. He came to Pune in 1949 to join his maternal uncle Late Shridhar Shetty in his hotel business.
Ganesh Shetty, president of Pune Restaurants & Hoteliers Association (PRAHA) said, “Today we all have lost a doyen of our hospitality industry. Mr Jagannath Shetty of Vaishali restaurant was undoubtedly a successful businessman who set a very high standard in the hotel industry. Jagannathanna can rightfully claim to introduce South Indian cuisine to Punekars across many generations. He was also a great human being and a benefactor to PRAHA! He was forefront in donating a large part of his wealth to enumerable social causes.”
Jagannath Shetty was born on 8th October 1932 in Onimajalu mane in Bailur, a small village near Karkalla in south Kanara. He had left home at the age of thirteen to work in Kalyan with his uncle for Rs 3 a month. The ambitious young boy then came to Pune in 1949 at the age of 17. The teen-aged Jagannath worked hard from the early hours of the morning till late at night. He lived in the staff quarters in the hotel. He worked as a dish washer.
This hard work bore fruit when he started Café Madras (present day Roopali) in 1951 and later Madras Health home, now the very ‘in’ place, Vaishali on Fergusson College Road. But everything was not a bed of roses and Jagannath Shetty had to work hard to achieve that success.
Vaishali in those days was a tiny restaurant. However, Jagannath Shetty’s toil brought rich dividends. His restaurants as they are now, are products of nineteen hours of continuous work every day, for a span of twenty years. Today his restaurants have become a household name in Pune and are popular spots for both the young and the old alike. Celebrities frequently visit these restaurants.
He has several awards to his credit. He was awarded ‘The Gunduraj Shetty gold medal for the best social worker’ for his selfless contribution to society. Continuously he has bagged the ‘Cleanest kitchen award’ from the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) for several years now. For the significant work in the field of quality, The Entrepreneurs International Conferred ‘Quality Award ’ to his restaurant Vaishali, on 29th July 2003. Tridal Pune Felicitated him with Pune’s most prestigious award “Punya Bhushan Puraskar’ in the year 2000. Recently The Times Group declared VAISHALI as the Best South Indian Restaurant. Chimanlal Govinddas Memorial Trust has also awarded him with “Udyam Gaurav Purskar”.
Dowry is a social evil prevailing in our community. Shetty instituted gold medals to newly married outstanding couples i.e. those who marry without accepting ‘dowry’. Once a year all the Bunts in Pune gather for their annual day, where a renowned member of the community is invited as the chief guest. The guest then bestows the medal to the deserving couple. This is indeed an honor for the couple. In this way, Jagannath Shetty encouraged the men in Pune to oppose dowry. He also helped many parents to get their daughters married.
Though he settled down in Pune, he had not forgotten his native place. He generously gave donations to his old school for development, and build the village Ganapathi Temple.
Jagannath Shetty was an ardent golfer and has Captained Poona golf club in the year 1997-98. ”If I don’t play golf even for one day, I feel very uneasy”, Shetty used to say. He won several awards too. He started an annual “Vaishali Cup” for amateurs.
His wife Shakuntala Shetty had passed away in 2006. They have a daughter Nikita.
Shridhar Babu Shetty had started four hotels – Nirmal Bhavan on J M Road, Madras Cafe and Madras Health Home on F C Road, and Hotel Bhairav near the PMC building, between 1945 and 1950. (Madras Health Home was renamed Vaishali in 1968 and Madras Cafe was renamed Rupali in 1969).
Shridhar died in a road accident on February 14, 1961. Jagannath married Shridhar’s elder daughter Shakuntala. He got the names of the hotels changed with permission from his mother-in-law Appi Shetty.
In 2017, Shetty’s relatives had filed an FIR with Pune police claiming he had fraudulently became owner of the hotels.
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