Discover how Dishoom gamified dining to become a must-visit destination, offering lessons in creative problem-solving and customer engagement.

In Episode 261 of Anecdotally Speaking, Shawn shares a brilliant story about the Indian restaurant chain Dishoom. Facing a lull in foot traffic during afternoons, Dishoom introduced a creative solution that made them an internationally known, must-visit location.
Mark and Shawn discuss how their solution outperformed traditional discounting, tapping into behavioural psychology.
This episode is packed with insights on innovation, brand alignment, and creating experiences that resonate.
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For your story bank
Tags: Storytelling, Problem Solving, Innovation, Behavioural Change, Loyalty, Creativity, Gamification
This story starts at 1:11

Dishoom is an Indian café chain that launched in London in 2010, drawing inspiration from the old Irani cafés of mid-century Bombay. The design, atmosphere and food all reflect that heritage, and the concept quickly resonated with Londoners. Over time, Dishoom expanded to 13 locations across the UK and developed a strong, distinctive brand.
Despite their popularity, they encountered a common hospitality challenge: afternoons were dead. Lunch was bustling, dinner was fully booked, but between those two peaks, the cafés turned into ghost towns. The team considered the usual approach of offering discounts to bring people in, but that didn’t sit right. Dishoom’s brand was built on culture, story and experience, and a basic discount felt too transactional and out of sync with their identity.
Instead, they reached into the cultural fabric that inspired their cafés and found a clever idea rooted in a traditional Bombay gambling game called Matka—a dice game. The team at Dishoom reimagined this game for the café setting. If you dined at Dishoom and paid your bill before 6pm, and if you had a special token, a small keyring-like charm, you were invited to roll a die. If it landed on six, your entire meal, including drinks, was free.
On the face of it, the promotion equated to a 16.6% discount. But that’s not what people saw. What they experienced was the excitement of the chance and of possibly getting a free meal. It became an event in itself. The chance of winning turned an otherwise dull dining window into something thrilling.
But not everyone could roll the dice. To be eligible, you had to possess one of the Dishoom tokens, and these weren’t handed out to just anyone. Tokens were offered to regular diners, loyal patrons, or those who built a rapport with the staff. Each restaurant had its own token, and you could only use your token at the location you received it from. It added layers of exclusivity and built a sense of community and mystery.
Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy and a champion of behavioural economics, shared this story in a talk and highlighted its brilliance. He recalled colleagues visiting from Chicago who insisted on going to Dishoom, not because they couldn’t afford the meal (these were people who could likely buy the entire chain), but because they wanted the fun of rolling the dice. The discount wasn’t the point. It was the experience, the story, and the uniqueness of the moment.