Hyderabad : Long before Hyderabad’s dining scene had food apps and reservation waitlists, it had a handful of rooms where the city learned to eat out and the people who ran them. Loca Loka gathered the people who built Hyderabad’s hospitality culture for Loca(L) Legends, an invitation-only evening where veterans who have run some of the city’s best-loved rooms for decades shared the floor with the restaurateurs and entrepreneurs now writing its next chapter. Between them, they held a history of the city that lives in memories, not in books. Part of Loca Season 1, the brand’s six-week, city-wide programme marking its launch in Hyderabad under the line “Co-founded by Hyderabad”, the evening set out to capture those stories before time could claim them.
Every legend arrived with one object from their establishment’s past: an early menu with unbelievable prices, a first-day bill, a faded photograph, a signboard that outlived its street. Each became an opening entry in the Loca(L) Legends Archive, a growing record of how Hyderabad learned to eat out and stay out.
Then came the conversation. On a panel moderated by Rana Daggubati, Arjun Valluri (Founder, Xcess, Extreme Sports Bar and Heart Cup Coffee), Shravan Juvvadi (Founder, Tabula Rasa) and Hemender Reddy (Founder, The Moonshine Project) traded anecdotes that had the room nodding in recognition one minute and doubled over with laughter the next. Together, they represent three complementary chapters in the evolution of Hyderabad’s hospitality and entertainment industry. Their talk went beyond venues and balance sheets to the instincts behind them that ranged from reading changing consumer aspirations, taking entrepreneurial risks to today creating spaces that helped turn Hyderabad into a destination for music, dining and experiential entertainment. “Then vs Now” conversations paired veterans with younger founders to argue over how the city’s evenings have changed, while anonymous confessional cards and a round of “Unwritten Rules” drew out the candour, humour and cheerful disagreement the trade is famous for.
The Loca(L) Legends archive doesn’t end here. Each legend will be filmed in their own establishment, with the stories released as a short-form series and a longer documentary edit.
“ Every city has a history that never made it into the books. In Hyderabad, a lot of it was lived in a handful of rooms, run by people who knew every regular by name and the story behind every table. They are the unofficial keepers of the city’s culinary history. Loca(L) Legends was about pulling up a chair, pressing record and making sure those stories outlive the rooms they happened in,” said Rana Daggubati, Co-Founder, Loca Loka.
Sree Harsha Vadlamudi, Co-Founder & CEO, Loca Loka, added, “I’ve been in this industry for over a decade, and the people in that room taught me most of what I know. They understood loyalty long before anyone called it a community strategy. Hyderabad’s hospitality is one of the city’s oldest subcultures, with its own rituals, rivalries and unwritten rules. A season about the city’s obsessions had to make room for the people who built it as we raised a toast to their strength, perseverance, and creativity.”
Up next: Season 1 moves from the city’s storytellers to its most permanent ones. Loca Ink takes over Aliens Tattoo on Saturday, October 24, with flash tattooing on synthetic skin, a collective canvas and unfiltered conversations with Hyderabad’s tattoo artists.
Loca Season 1 events are open to guests aged 21 and above, by invitation only.
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