Standing tall for the past 86 years, Poona Guest House is one of the oldest food joints in the city. It has been one of the most favourite Maharashtrian eateries for people from Pune and those from outside the city too, especially film and theatre personalities like Dev Anand, Sulochana, Lalita Pawar, Bal Gandharva, Dr Kashinath Ghanekar, Jayashree Gadkar, Dada Kondke and Yogacharya BKS Iyengar Gu
ruji, to name a few. Late film producer-actor-director and writer of silent movies Nana Sarpotdar started the the guest house in 1935 in order to cater to the staffers working in his movies and film studio. In 1936, he started a lodging facility too to provide accommodation for film personalities. Since then, the Sarpotdar family has been running the guest house at the same place on Laxmi Road — near Dagdu Sheth Halwai Ganapati — with the same passion. Typical Maharashtrian food, along with Bajirao Chiwda and Mastani Misal, are the specialty items on PGH’s menu. Nanasaheb was the first restaurateur in the city who started serving food in steel plates and bowls. After Nanasaheb passed away, his wife Saraswati bai took charge of PGH and opened a branch in Matheran in 1940 to expand the business. All this while, she was managing a family of seven children! Saraswati Bai’s elder son Bandopant later opened one more PGH in Delhi’s Karol Baug area on the request of top Congress leader and Union Minister late Yashwantrao Chavan. Here, Chavan introduced the Maharashtrian food to the then prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. “They often came to PGH in Karolbagu to eat Aluwadi (a deep-fried delicacy made from colocasia leaves) and Alu bhaji (a thick veg made out of the same) and Ukadiche Modak (rice flour dumplings with fillings of fresh coconut and jaggery),” Kishor said. Delhi’s PGH served Delhites for almost 50 years, till 1995. During the India-Sino war in 1962, PGH started dishing out rice plate as the ration system was introduced by the government, but not before starting outdoor catering services in the name of Sarpotdar Caterers in 1960. “After introducing several new changes in the food business, we started the buffet system in 1980 and served a gathering of Congress Convention held at Congress Bhavan in 1982 and around the same time, we also catered to some 40,000 RSS volunteers who had camped at Taljai then
In 1985, PGH introduced Gramin Thali with special food items like stuffed brinjal, zunka-bhakar, green chillie kharda and garlic chutney and so on. “We survived for all these years because of sheer hard work to maintain quality, and because we serve good food at reasonable rates with the attitude of Grahaka Devo Bhava (The guest is god).
