Cafe Mondegar, Restaurant and coffeehouse in Colaba, Mumbai, India
Cafe Mondegar is a restaurant and coffeehouse in the Colaba neighborhood of Mumbai, occupying the ground floor of an old building near Apollo Bunder. It has one main room with long tables, a bar counter, and walls painted floor to ceiling with colorful murals.
The cafe was founded in 1932 by the Yazdegardi family as an Iranian coffeehouse inside the old Apollo Hotel. Over the following decades it grew into a meeting point for residents and travelers passing through Colaba.
The murals by cartoonist Mario Miranda cover nearly every wall of the cafe, showing street vendors, office workers, and everyday scenes from Mumbai. Spending time with these paintings gives a visitor a lively sense of the city outside.
The cafe is a short walk from the Gateway of India and easy to find on the main street in Colaba. It stays open throughout the day, so visitors can drop in at any hour without needing to plan ahead.
The cafe has one of Mumbai's oldest working jukeboxes, which has been playing music since the mid-twentieth century. Guests can still drop in a coin and choose a song from a list that has barely changed over the years.
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