Kaylir Canteen — Restaurant in Tamil Nadu

The newly opened Kaylir Canteen is a mix between a traditional Canteen serving vegetarian food with modern frescoes and some unique service concepts. It's motto is SIMPLICITY and they are doing a great job at it so far. We went for lunch and the review is as follows:

Ambience/Decor: Located in a residential area, your first view of Kaylir Canteen is a 3-storey building with huge frescoes on its sides. These have been done very colourfully and invoke a sense of nostalgia.

There's ample parking and a waiting area outside. The restaurant itself is simple with wooden tables and chairs.

Service: The place opens for breakfast and lunch only. Breakfast has a small basic menu with tiffin items and lunch only serves meals. PRICES are very NOMINAL. There's usually a waiting period of 10-15 mins and they take payment in advance. The bill is sent to your mobile instantly

Service has unique features: Upon entry to the restaurant you are asked to pick up your pre-filled thali from the dispensing counter and then go and take a seat. There are water coolers and water is self service. They serve unlimited refills and that along with any beverages ordered are the only service rendered. We tried the spiced buttermilk and it was really good (Beverages are on an additional charge). *I must add here that the service was slow for us. We had to request for appalam 4 times before we received any. Upon finishing your meal, you are expected to clear your own plate near the hand washing station.

The reason this style is unique is because you can see they have taken their "simplicity" moto very seriously. It was a refreshing change for us but may not be so for everyone.

Food: We had the lunch meal and it was basic and tasted absolutely homemade. There were 3 lentils and 4 vegetables apart from rice and other accompaniments. The capcicum sambhar was EXCEPTIONAL. The Kathirikai roast was also excellent. The lunch was priced at Rs 200 per head and was definitely value for money.

Overall, it's a decent place to visit but there's nothing too exciting in terms of food. The place is very clean with a modern touch on its facade and value for money.

I have two suggestions for you: Please explain the service concept at the start or display it written somewhere. You may introduce some exciting a la carte food items which are more satiable taste wise. No one will mind...

I've been hearing about Kaylir canteen in YouTube for quite sometime, but in one of the videos, that youtuber repeatedly registered the area as CIT Nagar, I was just thinking sometime we may visit. But recently I happened to see a video where it was mentioned CIT Colony which is close to my place @ Alwarpet. As my mom is pure veg, decided to dine in & we went today Aug 24 for lunch. We gave our name for lunch & was called in as there is a waiting area outside the dine in place for buffet & it's a pet friendly area. We were greeted & was informed about the place and wished us to have a nice eating experience. That was welcoming, individual attention is their important motto. Really appreciate it. We were seated, items were served, there are 14 items, we can see it displayed hand written using chalk in black board outside dining area. All the items were good, the salt & spice level for my liking was bit less, obviously they're keeping the various groups of customers in mind & wanted everyone to enjoy their dishes. But the items are off high quality, tasty, fresh, hygienic & the way they serve every item is awesome. All the boys took great care of people who dined there. There were lot of personal attention. Nowadays we don't get to see in reputed restaurants, it's all mechanical, here, it's very personal. At the end of the meal, our stomach felt light that shows the quality of the food served. In this place, we need to dispose our plates, tumblers, left overs ourselves but we were given proper directions of how to do it. Also, there are lot of handwritten stuffs, in a chaste as well as normal speaking language all through the place. Their exteriors, painting all thoughtfully designed. Overall a very good experience, planning to visit this place more often as I found this hidden gem after it's first year. Still need to try their breakfast, snacks, dinner with my extended family too. Kudos guys!...

Visited this place on my Wedding Anniversary with Wife and Parents. I was disappointed due to several reasons.

PROS:

Very good food. Felt like eating home food as advertised. Some may not find INR 200 justifiable, considering it's a self-service. Also most major vegetarian restaurants in the city charge more or less the same. Not sure how Kaylir stands out.

CONS:

We were made to wait for at least 15 mins while the place had only 4 people. It's not like we ordered anything fancy. We ordered the only option on the lunch menu - South Indian Meals. Everything was cooked and ready, no idea why we had to wait outside for so long

Water flow from wash basin and restroom taps were a joke. Couldn't even wash the soap properly

The person sitting at the reception kind of insulted my Dad as a 'joke'. I told him about it while we were leaving the place. Personally, it ruined my experience as I kept thinking about it the whole time while eating

Not even water was kept at the table. Food self service is OK but at least a jug with tumblers should be kept on the table. I think it's basic courtesy

Parents wanted drinks after lunch and we had to again go and stand in line to Pay and get it. The receptionist being very slow worsens it

Buttermilk Priced at INR 60 and Orange juice at INR 90 are a little over the top Pricing.

FINAL VERDICT: With the quality of food they serve, Kaylir should be at 4.8 or even 4.9 on Google rating. They got 4.3. I have seen average restaurants at 4.4 or more solely due to their hospitality. 4.3 rating sums it all up.

If they do not make use of this initial excitement, in a year they could become just another veg restaurant in...