Most undergraduates spend their final semester scrambling for attendance points and surviving project deadlines. Ananya Agarwal spent hers opening a commercial kitchen in Gurugram. The bet paid off fast. Her newly launched vegetarian bistro, Lume & Lime, hauled in ₹15 lakh in its first 50 days of operation.
She is 21 years old. Currently finishing her final year in a Bachelor’s degree in Management Studies, Agarwal splits her hours between lecture halls and supplier negotiations. She does not treat the restaurant as a casual hobby or an offline side gig. As chief executive officer and co-founder, she takes personal accountability for the floor every evening, running service orders the moment her college day wraps up. Balancing university coursework with supply chain snags demands stamina. Yet she insists the pressure keeps her sharp.
Agarwal built Lume & Lime around a deliberate culinary rule: stop overloading imported cuisine with Indian spice blends. "In India, we add a lot of Indianised flavours to Italian, Mediterranean or Mexican cuisine. So the authenticity of the cuisine goes away because so many spices are added to it," Agarwal stated, describing the founding premise behind the venture. She wanted an unhurried, welcoming dining room where diners could taste baseline ingredients without a wall of red chilli powder.
Lume & Lime operates an entirely vegetarian kitchen, backed by dedicated vegan selections. The kitchen fires brick-oven pizzas, tosses handmade pastas, and plates up fresh tacos alongside loaded mezze boards. Specialty breads, various types of fries, artisanal coffees, chilled beverages, and baked desserts round out the station lines. The focus stays trained on letting herbs and fresh produce lead the palate rather than overpowering them with local curry mixes.
She did not step into commercial hospitality alone. Agarwal established the bistro alongside her parents, Dr Vishal Agrawal and Preeti Agrawal. Her father brought more than a decade of corporate business experience to the table, turning dinner-table talk into crash courses on brand positioning, cash reserves, and supplier contracts. That mentorship bridged the gap between academic business theories and the chaotic, razor-thin margins of running a retail food kitchen.
Agarwal is now preparing for her final degree examinations while directing daily service and menu rollouts at the Gurugram outlet. With the bistro crossing its opening milestones, her immediate target centers on stabilizing operations, refining seasonal kitchen batches, and proving that young student founders can build profitable food brands before graduation day arrives.