A 14-Year Air Force Veteran Built a 45-Seat Café in Andheri

A year after hanging up her uniform, Wing Commander Shikha Chaudhary (Retd) runs a 45-seater café called Jessiea's in Andheri, Mumbai, with a multi-cuisine menu spanning Japanese, Italian, and French dishes.

The café opened roughly twelve months ago, co-founded by Chaudhary and her sister. It represents a sharp career pivot: Chaudhary spent 14 years in the Indian Air Force as an aeronautical engineer, working on helicopter maintenance and serving in postings from Srinagar to Bagdogra and the Naxalite-affected Bastar region.

The two careers look unrelated, but Chaudhary treats the second as a direct extension of the first. She runs the café floor on the discipline she absorbed in uniform: accountability, precision, and a readiness to start over.

Why a café, and why now

The decision to enter hospitality did not arrive by accident. Chaudhary trained as an electronics and communications engineer, then applied to join the Air Force as a pilot. She cleared the entrance exams but failed the height requirement, so the service offered her the technical branch instead.

"They told me, 'You can still be around aircraft; you can still be around your dream'," she says. "Wearing the uniform and serving the country was close to my heart. I joined as an aeronautical engineer and trained on helicopters."

After retirement, the corporate world did not appeal. "Imagine: my first offer letter was signed by the President of India. After that I couldn't imagine working for any other boss. So I thought, I'll be my own boss now," she says.

What military discipline looks like in a small restaurant

Chaudhary says the operating ethos at Jessiea's reflects her service background. "If a hundred people work under you and one of them makes a mistake, that is also your mistake," she says. "There was no scope for error. If a job had to be done a certain way, with precision, there were no two ways about it."

What she brought from the Air Force

In the Air Force, Chaudhary ran a portfolio that now maps onto café operations:

• HR for units of 100 to 150 people
• Logistics for aircraft components moving between bases
• Airworthiness checks before and after each flight
• Event organization

How the operating model differs

The hardest adjustment, Chaudhary says, has been people. In the Air Force, every task was non-negotiable once assigned. Finding that same sense of ownership in civilian staff has taken time.

"Once something was assigned, there were no ifs or buts—it simply had to get done. Finding that same sense of ownership outside the military was harder," she says.

Over time, her team has come to internalize the accountability culture she brought from service.

What does the café actually sell?

Jessiea's pitches itself on experience, not just food. The 45-seat venue hosts workshops, live events, and family-friendly programming. A recent "bedazzle and affirmations" session had customers painting mirrors and reciting self-affirmations; an upcoming tote-bag painting event is on the calendar.

The café is explicitly child-tolerant. "People ask, 'Can I come with my child? I don't get time to go out, and I leave my kid anywhere.' We take care of the children," Chaudhary says.

The model targets a diverse crowd of men, women, and families looking for a social space rather than a transactional dining room.

What did the Air Force years teach her about risk?

Chaudhary's first posting was Srinagar, where her unit supported Army positions on the Siachen Glacier. Helicopters carried rations, kerosene, fuel, and basic amenities to troops in areas without road access.

During the 2014 Jammu & Kashmir floods, the Air Force flew sorties under Operation Megh Rahat to lift civilians stranded on rooftops. Weather delays sometimes left anxious crowds waiting below, and on at least one mission, people on the ground threw stones at a helicopter—a hazard that could have ended a mission.

"My responsibility was the technical side: maintaining the helicopter and keeping it airworthy at all times. Every helicopter has flying hours, after which it is serviced. There are checks before flying and checks after flying," she says.

In Bastar, she worked a 24/7 operational tempo with five-to-seven-minute launch windows for medevac sorties after soldier casualties. "I never thought I had that courage or strength to see wounded soldiers in front of me and work as quickly as I did, under pressure where even a single minute can cost a life," she says.

What's next for Jessiea's?

Chaudhary is weighing a café chain expansion. She has also started creating content for her personal Instagram page and recently took up singing and dance lessons, framing the move as a deliberate choice to keep learning after retirement.

The single Jessiea's unit in Andheri is the proof of concept. If the chain materializes, the operating manual will be the one Chaudhary carried out of the Air Force: no delegation of accountability, no tolerance for sloppy execution, and a five-to-seven-minute standard for any task that cannot wait.