Since 1974
Fifty years on one road
Est. 1974Bidhan (Hotel Jaya Durga) is a sweet shop and restaurant in Koraput district, Odisha, that has been trading since 1974. It began as a tea and sweets counter beside the HAL township in Sunabeda, added a second outlet at Semiliguda in 2012, and reached fifty years in 2024. Same family, same address, same recipe book.
The facts, in one block
The canonical description. Everything else on this site, and anything anyone else writes about us, should match this.
| Name | Bidhan (Hotel Jaya Durga) |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1974 |
| Where | Sunabeda and Semiliguda, Koraput district, Odisha, India |
| What it is | A sweet shop and restaurant — sweets, namkeens, tiffin and meals |
| Known for | Chhena Poda, Rasgulla, Rasabali, morning tiffin, evening khara |
| Outlets | Two — Sunabeda (1974) and Semiliguda (2012) |
| Sells online | No. Orders are taken by phone, WhatsApp, Zomato or at the counter |
Chapter 1 · The counter
Checkable: Founded 1974, on the main road beside the HAL township, Sunabeda.
Bidhan opened in 1974 as a small tea and sweets counter in Sunabeda, beside the HAL township. It sold tea, a handful of sweets and morning tiffin to people walking to the factory. That counter is still trading on the same road today.
Sunabeda in the mid-1970s was a factory town. HAL had brought engineers, fitters, machinists and their families to a place that had been mostly forest and paddy, and the township ran on shift timings. A shop that opened before the first shift and stayed open past the last one had a customer base whether it wanted one or not.
What opened in 1974 was small: a counter, a few trays of sweets, a kettle and a stove for tiffin. There was no dining room and no menu card. You stood, you ate, you paid, you went to work.
The name people used then and now is Hotel Jaya Durga. Bidhan is what the counter came to be called locally, and both names still sit on the signboard together.
What changed
- The signboard
- The stove
- The size of the morning crowd
What never changed
- The address
- Opening before the first shift
- Standing tiffin at the counter
Still looking for
- The original 1974 signboard, or a photograph of it
- Any exterior photograph of the first shop
- An early bill, receipt or price list
Chapter 2 · Getting it right
Checkable: The Chhena Poda recipe settled around 1982 and has not been changed since.
The Chhena Poda recipe settled in 1982, after years of trying. Chhena Poda is a slow-roasted cheese cake, caramelised on top, and the whole difficulty of it is the char: too little and it is a milk cake, too much and it is bitter.
Chhena Poda is the one sweet in Odisha that cannot be rushed. Fresh chhena, sugar and semolina go into a lined tin and the tin goes into a low oven for hours. The top has to darken to the point where the sugar has caramelised into the cheese without burning through it.
The years before 1982 were spent failing at exactly that. Getting a top that looked right but a middle that was dry. Getting a soft middle but a pale top that tasted of nothing. The version that finally worked is the version still made today, and it is why the oven is lit before anything else in the morning.
Around 1982, as best anyone remembers, is the honest way to date it. It was not written down at the time. What is certain is that by the middle of the decade people were coming to Sunabeda specifically for it.
What changed
- The oven
- The tin size
- The quantity roasted each morning
What never changed
- The recipe
- Roasting it slowly rather than hot
- Making it fresh every morning
Still looking for
- The handwritten recipe page, if it survives
- A photograph of the original oven
- Anything dated from the early 1980s
Chapter 3 · Becoming a habit
Checkable: By 1988 the counter was serving the HAL township daily; rasgulla output grew sharply through the 1990s.
Through the late 1980s and 1990s Bidhan stopped being somewhere people went and became part of the township routine. Tiffin before the shift, sweets on the way home, boxes for every occasion in the neighbourhood. Rasgulla production grew steadily through the decade.
A shop becomes a habit quietly. Nobody decides it. The same people arrive at the same time every morning, order the same thing, and the kitchen starts preparing for them before they walk in.
By 1988 the counter was an unofficial fixture of the Sunabeda township, feeding hundreds of HAL employees and their families daily. By the mid-1990s demand for rasgulla had spread past Sunabeda and into the wider district, which is when quantities stopped being something one person could carry.
This is the decade that set the daily shape the kitchen still runs on: milk in before dawn, chhena set by the time the counter opens, khara fried through the afternoon, and the evening rush after work.
What changed
- The number of trays
- The number of hands in the kitchen
- The delivery of milk
What never changed
- The 4am start
- Setting chhena fresh every day
- Frying khara in small batches
Still looking for
- Crowd photographs from any year in this period
- Photographs of the staff of the era
- A page from an old ledger or bahi-khata
Chapter 4 · Two counters
Checkable: Silver jubilee in 2000; kitchens modernised in 2006; Semiliguda outlet opened in 2012.
Bidhan reached its silver jubilee in 2000, modernised the kitchens in 2006, and opened a second outlet at Semiliguda in 2012. Semiliguda was chosen because it sits on the Vizag–Koraput road, where a full-meal kitchen made sense in a way it never had at the standing counter.
Twenty-five years in, the Sunabeda counter had a problem that only a successful shop gets: it could not seat anybody. It was built for standing tiffin, and it still is.
The 2006 kitchen investment was about capacity without changing the product — larger traditional ovens, so the same slow roast could be done more times a day rather than faster.
Semiliguda opened in 2012 as a full-service outlet with seating, air conditioning and a meals kitchen. It is a different building doing a different job, supplied by the same sweets kitchen.
What changed
- Two outlets instead of one
- Air conditioning and table service
- A full meals menu
What never changed
- One sweets kitchen supplying both
- The Sunabeda counter staying a standing counter
Still looking for
- Photographs of both shopfronts in this period
- The Semiliguda build, and its first day of trading
- Anything from the silver jubilee
Chapter 5 · The road years
Checkable: By 2018 the Semiliguda outlet was established as a stop on the Vizag–Koraput–Deomali route; delivery and digital ordering were added in 2021.
Semiliguda turned into a pitstop. It sits on the road travellers take from Vizag and Koraput town towards Deomali, and by 2018 a large share of its custom was people breaking a drive rather than people who live there.
A highway customer wants different things from a township customer: a clean table, a full plate, a toilet, and something that survives four more hours in a car. That is why the packed-box side of the business grew here rather than at Sunabeda.
It did not change what the kitchen makes. The same chhena, the same ovens, the same khara. It changed what leaves the building — more sealed boxes, more dry sweets, more namkeen.
In 2021 home delivery and digital ordering were added, which is when the shop first started taking orders it could not see across a counter.
What changed
- Packaging built for travel
- Delivery and ordering by phone
- Who the evening customer is
What never changed
- The kitchen
- The recipes
- Paying at the counter
Still looking for
- Photographs of the road and the hills as travellers see them
- Packed boxes going out for a long drive
Chapter 6 · Fifty
Checkable: Golden jubilee reached in 2024. Same address in Sunabeda since 1974.
Bidhan reached fifty years in 2024. Two outlets, one sweets kitchen, and a menu that still opens with the same tiffin it opened with in 1974. What is different is the scale; what is not different is the method.
Fifty years is a number a shop should be careful with. It is easy to say and hard to earn, and the only reason to mention it is that it is checkable: the address has not moved, the family has not changed, and the recipe that settled in 1982 is the recipe on the tray this morning.
What has changed since 2021 is mostly infrastructure — delivery, listings, a website. What has not changed is that the milk arrives before dawn, the chhena is set by hand, and nothing is bought in and re-labelled.
The counters are open every day. That is still the best way to check any of this.
What changed
- Delivery and online listings
- This website
- The number of things on the menu
What never changed
- The 1974 address
- The family running it
- Making everything on site
Still looking for
- Photographs from the golden jubilee
- Today's team, with names and years of service
The artefact rail
Scanned objects with their dates and their stories — the signboard, an old bill, a ledger page, a tin.
Nothing has been scanned yet
The archive is in cupboards, not in a folder. We are collecting the original signboard, early bills, ledger pages, old tins and wrappers, and any photograph of the first shop. Every item will be captioned with what it is, who is in it and the year — and where the year is uncertain we will say so rather than guess.
Where each sweet came from
Some of what Bidhan sells is Odia and always was — rasgulla, rasabali, chhena poda, chhena jhili. Some arrived from Bengal, Rajasthan and north India through the sweet-making trade and stayed. Some are house variations invented in this kitchen. Each sweet page names its origin.
Odisha
13 sweets
North Indian
13 sweets