About Manohar Vilas in Kankanady circle, Mangalore, Mangalore

Hotel Manohar Vilas – serving mangalorean delicacies since 1926 blessed by the goodwill of Mangaloreans.
Manohar Vilas as it is called today had very humble beginning in 1926 – set up initially as a tea stall by Belman Laxminarayan Bhat.

After trying his hands in jaggery making, coconut oil extraction - the profession that he held onto was the restaurant business- which started off as a small tea stall in kankanady soon became a small tiffin house.

Sighting labor shortage at the tiffin house- his eldest son Anantha Padmanabha Bhat( Bhojanna as he is fondly called) who was in the 5th standard, discontinued schooling and joined his father in running the business.He was helped/ assisted by his brothers Shankar Bhat, Krishnamoorthy Bhat, Achyuta Bhat, Chandra Shekar Bhat & others who took turns to help him out in different areas at different times.

In the free time he would go through English newspapers to learn English and interact with British and also learnt Malayalam to interact more fluently with Keralite customers!

1940s was tough times for Manohar Vilas as world war made certain commodities like sugar restrictive. Young man Bhojanna made a deals with officers to barter jackfruit for sugar and thus kept the business going. Manohar Vilas was one of the very few restaurants which was serving tea and Coffee made of sugar during those days.

Conscious about its location nearer to Father Mullers- the management decided to keep the profits as minimal as possible. The main objective of Manohar Vilas was to provide quality & Healthy food to the people who came to the hospital to be treated for various ailments. Lot of patients was allowed free or subsidized stay in the hotel as well.

Beaten rice with curds, golibajje, sukrunde, kashi halwa, gulab jamun , jackfruit appa, masala dosa, tri-coloured sweet on independence day, rosemilk, etc were some of the Signature dishes of Manohar Vilas. So strong was the demand, that some regular customers would in the morning reserve for certain dishes to be kept aside for them, when they returned in the evening.

Soon one by one the younger brothers ventured into various other fields of occupation and the running of the restaurant was left to the 2 brothers Anantha Padmanabha Bhat and Shankar Bhat. Both kept the business growing doing necessary changes time to time adapting to the changing tastes and upgrading infrastructure.

Edited and compiled by
Namratha Bhat – grand daughter of Bhojanna