Art Mumbai 2025 — A Multi-Site Specialty Coffee Experience

When Art Mumbai returns each year, it transforms the city’s historic Mahalaxmi Racecourse into one of India’s most important cultural destinations — bringing together leading galleries, collectors, artists, and thousands of visitors from around the world.

For the 2025 edition, Nandan Coffee was invited to design and execute the event’s specialty coffee program across the fairgrounds — a large-scale operation requiring multiple service formats, distinct menus, and seamless coordination over several days.

The Ask

Art Mumbai needed more than a single café stall.

They required a coffee partner capable of:

• Serving high volumes without compromising quality
• Operating across multiple zones simultaneously
• Designing menus suited to different audience needs
• Maintaining consistency in experience across locations
• Supporting both public visitors and private stakeholders
  
  

In short: a hospitality system, not just a coffee counter.

Our Approach

Nandan designed a distributed service model — effectively creating a network of specialty coffee points across the fair.

Key elements of the setup included:

• 8+ service locations across the venue
• Dedicated stations for public areas and private lounges
• Tailored menus for each zone
• Full back-end logistics for equipment, inventory, and staffing
• Setup completed ahead of opening to ensure smooth operations
• Each location functioned as a self-contained micro-café, while still operating as part of a coordinated whole.
  
  

Zone-Specific Service Design

Because footfall patterns and expectations varied dramatically across the fair, a single menu would not have worked.

Instead, we developed location-specific offerings:

Public Zones
High-throughput menus designed for speed, clarity, and consistency — ensuring visitors could access quality coffee without long wait times.

Media and Team Lounges
A quieter, hospitality-focused environment serving media, gallery teams, and partners throughout the day, including pre-opening access.

This dual strategy allowed us to balance efficiency with experience.

Operational Scale

Delivering this program required substantial infrastructure.

Equipment deployed included:

• Multiple commercial espresso machines
• Professional grinders and brewing tools
• Automated tamping systems
• Dedicated retail and service equipment
  
  

Service Timeline

• Setup: November 11
• Pre-opening service: November 11–12
• Public fair: November 13–16
  
  

Operations ran continuously throughout the event.

Reach & Impact

Across four public days — plus pre-opening service — the Nandan coffee program served a significant portion of the fair’s attendees.

Total coffee sales during the event period: 5000+ cups

Additional pre-opening lounge service generated further engagement before the fair opened to the public.

Beyond revenue, the program delivered continuous visibility to a high-value audience of collectors, curators, international visitors, and cultural leaders.

What Made This Project Unique

Art Mumbai wasn’t simply a high-footfall event — it was a complex environment with varied service expectations and spatial constraints.

Success depended on:

• Precise planning and coordination
• Flexible service design
• Strong on-ground leadership
• Maintaining specialty coffee standards at scale
• Anticipating demand patterns across zones
  
  

The result was a coffee experience that felt integrated into the fair rather than bolted onto it.

The Outcome

Nandan’s multi-site coffee program contributed to the overall visitor experience while demonstrating the brand’s ability to execute large, premium events without compromising quality or hospitality.

For us, Art Mumbai represents the kind of project we value most:

Thoughtful, culturally relevant, logistically complex — and built around creating meaningful moments over coffee.