City Guesstimate: Sizing Bengaluru's Restaurant Count

Give a back-of-the-envelope figure for how many restaurants operate in Bengaluru, India, and walk through how you reach it. ```hint Two routes to a number You can build up from how often people buy prepared food and how many customers one outlet serves, or from how densely outlets are spread across different parts of the city. Use one route to check the other. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - What counts as a restaurant: only sit-down places, or also cafes, small self-service eateries, delivery-only kitchens, street carts and restaurants inside hotels? - Does each branch of a chain count as its own restaurant? - Should I use the municipal city limits or the wider metropolitan region? - Do you want a single number or a range? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - An agreed definition of "restaurant" and a geographic boundary before any arithmetic - A clear equation built from segmented, labeled assumptions in round numbers - Arithmetic shown step by step - A second method or a per-capita check that tests the result - A final range and the assumptions it is most sensitive to ### Follow-up Questions - How would the count change if delivery-only kitchens and street carts were included? - Which assumption moves the answer most, and how would you check it cheaply with real data? - How would you turn this count into a market size for a product sold to restaurant owners?