AB Celestial | Mumbai’s Floating Paradise

• ByStartupStory     |    March 17, 2021

“I believe that if dreams don’t scare you they aren’t big enough.”-  Aishwarya Bhende, Founder and Director of AB Celestial in an exclusive interview with Startup Story Media. 

Aishwarya, a fashion and music enthusiast who has always been into art and humanities background, wanted to explore the fields associated with hospitality despite being a business student. A wanderlust from a very young age, she visited different countries and these destinations gave her first exposure to any kind of waterfront affinity. According to Aishwarya , India is such a booming country with ample number of scope. she saw a huge opportunity on its seaside which could add jewels to the crown of her own city, Mumbai.

“I noticed that whenever my friends and families from overseas visited India they travelled to places like Goa and Kochi. These waterfronts cities are just like Mumbai except that we don’t use our coast as much as they do.”- Aishwarya

What followed was a vision to boost Mumbai’s Tourism and Hospitality sector. This gave birth to an extensive 3-year process of building India’s first floating restaurant that launched in 2017.

AB Celestial: For an heavenly experience

AB Celestial is originally built in Florida and is a 4 tier vessel that houses a café, banquet, lounge and open air sky deck giving you an opportunity to immerse in the enthralling 360 degree view of bandra – worli sea link.

“We love being able to give Mumbaikars or people an experience who haven’t had a chance to travel overseas or have not been exposed to boarding a boat before.”- Aishwarya

AB Celestial currently is open for sundowns and dinner from 5pm. They also take bookings for private functions along with hosting corporate events, weddings, birthdays, anniversaries etc.

Setting Goals And  Moving Forward

Aishwarya’s biggest motivation is her parents, she gets her daily inspiration from them and feels motivated to work harder and be a better person. With her strong determination she tells Startup Story Media that in the upcoming five years, she aim’s at run another 2 successful ventures.

“I always set goals to work towards so It helps me to stay focused as well as motivates me to grow and move forward each and every single day.”- Aishwarya

She would love to see AB Celestial expand and venture to different waterfront cities to help those cities utilize their coast to the maximum.

Challenges Faced

Upon asking some of the challenges that Aishwarya faced during her journey building AB Celestial, she tells Startup Story Media that every business has its own set of challenges. Similarly in her venture she personally felt designing the interior was one of the toughest aspects as designing a boat is very different from working with a restaurant on land or home. She, with the help of her mother, designed the whole boat, giving it a nautical personalization.

“I met with many interior designers but they never thought and envisioned Celestial the way I did. I wanted it to look and feel nautical, giving one an entire ‘at sea’ experience, hence we set our house colours to blues and white’s. It took 8 months to design the whole place and put together piece by piece.”- Aishwarya

Managing the whole initiative on one’s own is also challenging especially for the person who is a business student, she used her passion and love for art and fashion to design the interior. But gradually with her determination and will power to do something on her own, she overcame all the hurdles, moving forward to reach the apex of her dreams.

Business Mantra

According to Aishwarya no matter how hard it is one should never give up because time comes really in favour at the end for the person who kept working for the one thing passionately.

“It took me 3 years to set up my business and come up to this point where I am now.”- Aishwarya

Founder’s Message

“No matter how long it takes one should not give up on his or her dreams, and keep working towards achieving it.”- Aishwarya

Along with this Aishwarya added that one needs to have a good command and ability to work with a team, where people can come and talk to you without hesitating.

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