Cafe Coffee Day Appears To Have A Long And Uncomfortable History With Cockroaches

OfficeChai Team

The Indian internet has been in uproar over the last few days. A man had managed to videotape cockroaches snugly wedged into a fridge at a Cafe Coffee Day outlet in Jaipur; that would’ve been bad enough, but the CCD employee who discovered the customer recording the roach managed to slap him for his efforts. The entire incident was caught on video, which promptly went viral.

Twitter reacted with its customary outrage, coming up with a barrage of memes and jokes, and managing to trend a BoycottCCD hashtag. The outrage seemed to be towards the cockroach and the slap in equal parts. But while a customer getting slapped by a service employee might be unique, Cafe Coffee Day appears to be no stranger to accusations of cockroaches being found in its outlets. 

As far back as 2009, people have been complaining about cockroaches at the coffee chain.

In 2010, someone had tweeted about having bitten into a cockroach at a CCD.

The same year, East India Comedy member Sapan Verma had tweeted about finding a cockroach at a CCD. Someone had then replied to him about having spotted a rat in the CCD kitchen.

In October 2010, a customer claimed that they’d been served a mochaccino with a floating cockroach in it.

In 2011, someone had found a cockroach running in the chocolate cakes at the Cafe Coffee Day in IIT Madras.

The same year, a customer discovered a cockroach on the sandwich shelf.

In 2012, someone had written a blog celebrating the coffee chain, but had described the Noida Sector 18 CCD as “Best-known for its acute cockroach problem.”

The same year, someone had found a cockroach at Infiniti mall.

Even MTV VJ Ramona had spoken about the issue.

In 2014, yet another customer had found a cockroach at CCD.

And last year, someone had found a cockroach in a Bangalore outlet.

In 2016, a customer had even posted a detailed account of having found a cockroach at the Greater Kailash 2 outlet in Delhi. After reporting the incident to the manager, they’d said that no one from CCD had got back to them.

If all this isn’t horrifying enough, chew on this: there are plenty of such claims against nearly all Indian food chains.

Here are some people who claim to have found cockroaches at McDonald’s. 

And here are some cockroach reports at Dominos.

And here are some reports of cockroaches at homegrown Haldirams. 

Before you swear off ever eating out again, it’s worthwhile to bear in mind that there are hundreds and thousands of such outlets in India, and some reports of cockroaches found in the food doesn’t mean that your next meal will necessarily come with a side order of something out of Fear Factor. But there’s no smoke without fire, and it does appear that Indian food chains – and Cafe Coffee Day – appear to be somewhat lax with their hygiene regulations. Which means that the reaction to the latest Cafe Coffee Day cockroach incident might be a little over the top, given that some roaches are pretty much par for the course at food chains. Now that’s a thought that’s reassuring and horrifying in equal measure.