Kabir Husain, a physics professor currently living in London, and previously a Cooke Town resident, was a Dolphins regular. He remembers taking the railway overpass to reach Dolphins’ for endless plates of black pepper pork dry, washed down with mugs of chilled beer. He recalls a particularly riveting evening with beer-brewer buddies watching a bewildered cow trying to navigate the flyover at night.

Hollis Coats, a brewer, simplifies it. “It’s closest to home.” But this brevity belies his regular attendance and love for the silverfish fry.

“I’ve spent glorious days there, drinking white rum and eating prawn chilli fry. In those days, it was a dark, unpretentious dive; only men, noisy but nice. It was super cheap, great for end-of-the-month activities when I had no auto fare but drinkages were calling,” says Arul Mani, quizzer and English professor, who discovered Dolphins in the 90s. And then, in the 2000s, it changed. “There were more family units, very uncomfortable furniture, brightly-lit but straitlaced,” and he never went back.

“We approached this place as patrons. We wanted a place with drinks, good food, retro music — but also allows for great conversation,” Neil emphasises, speaking to their absolute choice to avoid the pitfalls and profits of social media marketing.

5. Remember, it’s never a Sure Shot

The success of Dolphins since its revival, with the return of its regulars, has pleasantly surprised Amit and Neil, and has even secured them another revival gig. They’re working on bringing back this elusive ‘old Bangalore bar feels’ to The Denny’s in JP Nagar, which opened in 1991.

“Old Bangaloreans want more places like this — bang for your buck, you don’t have to get decked up, it’s casual and you know everybody,” says Neil. “We don’t know what’s going to happen — we’re going to refine some of the ideas that work here, and test the ones we wanted to but didn’t. Let’s see,” says Amit, with a hopeful smile.

Joshua Muyiwa is a Bangalore-based poet and writer. 

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