Most restaurant franchises in India ask you to do two things at once: write a cheque and then become a restaurateur. You hire the chef, you chase the supplier, you answer the 11 pm call when the fryer dies. Xin by MindEscapes® asks you to do only the first. This is a guide to how that works — what FOCO means, what it costs, what you actually do as a partner, and how we are choosing the first ten.
What “FOCO” means at Xin
FOCO stands for Franchise Owned, Company Operated. You own the store — the site, the fit-out, the capital. Xin operates it — the menu, the kitchen team, the training, the technology, the marketing, the daily running. You keep the store’s operating profit after Xin’s fee.
The important word is operated. In a conventional franchise (FOFO — franchise owned, franchise operated) the brand sells you a manual and a logo and you run the floor. At Xin, the people in your kitchen are trained and managed by us. You never roster a shift, never negotiate with a vegetable supplier, never learn how a wok station is laid out. Your job is to be the owner and the local anchor.
The three Xin formats
Xin Go — 300 to 600 sq ft
A counter and a few stools. Bowls, baos, bings and boba to go. Indicative investment from ₹25 lakh. Xin Go is the format for high-footfall corners: near a college, a tech park gate, a railway station, a hill-town main road.
Xin Den — 700 to 1,200 sq ft
The full idea-café room: the one you have seen at Xin HSR in Bengaluru. Long tables, laptops, a deck of questions on every table, and Mira — our AI thinking partner — available at every seat. Indicative investment ₹35 to 60 lakh. Den is the format most founding partners are choosing, because it is where the community lives.
Xin Fine — destination dining
Chef-led, with a wine list, as at Xin Koramangala. Fine is opened selectively, usually once a city already has a Den, and is costed site by site.
What it costs — honestly
Three numbers matter. The fit-out and equipment (the ₹25 to 60 lakh above, depending on format and site). A one-time founding partner fee. And roughly two months of working capital so the store never starts from behind. Property is yours — owned sites make the best economics and are our first filter; a long lease works if it runs at least as long as the five-year agreement and carries no revenue share above ten percent.
Every site is costed before you commit. There is no national average we will quote you and then revise; you see your own number first.
What you do — and what you never have to
You do four things. You bring the site. You bring the capital. You open your town’s relationships — the school principal, the club secretary, the person who knows which road gets the Sunday crowd. And you sit with us for a monthly review of the store’s numbers.
You never manage people. You never run the kitchen. You never design a menu, buy an oven, or write an Instagram post. That is what the operating fee pays for, and it is why we do not ask you for a minimum guarantee — Xin runs the store, so Xin does not ask you to underwrite Xin’s performance.
Why an idea café, not just a café
Café economics are hard because the product is a commodity: coffee, Wi-Fi, a chair. Xin changes the product. Every table carries a deck of what-if questions. Every answer a diner writes goes to the Xin Canvas, is voted on by other diners, and the best are lifted to the Showcase and sometimes made real. Since 2026, Mira sits at every table too — a thinking partner that helps a guest shape an idea into a Spark Card they take home.
The result is a room people come back to for a reason that is not the menu — and a menu that is genuinely good, because the Pan-Asian book (twenty master bowls, hand-folded dim sum, Calcutta-Chinese classics, hills-only beef in the Nilgiris) was built over a decade in Coonoor and Bengaluru before a single partner was invited.
Where we are opening
Tamil Nadu and Karnataka first, in clusters so that supply, training and marketing travel efficiently: Coimbatore, Madurai, Trichy, Salem, Tirupur, Erode, Mysuru, Mangaluru, Hubballi, Manipal. Then Cochin, Trivandrum, Gudalur, Puducherry and Goa. Not every city on that list will get a Xin — we choose partners before we choose places.
How the ten founding partners are chosen
The process is deliberately slow and private. You apply. We reply within a day. If it fits, you are invited to the next Xin Table — a dinner with the founders, ten seats, where the real numbers are opened under NDA and the partners already in are at the table with you. After that comes a letter of intent, a joint site study in your town, and the agreement: five years from opening, renewable, aligned to your lease.
Founding partners are the first ten. They get the founding fee, first choice of territory in their cluster, and a seat at every Xin Table that follows.
Who is behind Xin
MindEscapes® — the company behind Celeste, Anma and the ideation campus in the Nilgiris — and Club Concierge, which has run programmes for 600 brands over 28 years. Xin was founded by Dipali Sikand; the first Xin opened in Coonoor in 2016.
Frequently asked
Is this a low-investment franchise?
For a full-service Pan-Asian room with its own technology layer, yes: a Xin Go from ₹25 lakh and a Xin Den from ₹35 lakh sit well under most restaurant franchises in India at comparable size.
Can I run more than one?
Yes — clusters are the plan. A partner who anchors a town is first in line for the second site in it.
What if I want to be hands-on?
Then FOCO is not for you, and we would rather say so now. The model works because the operator is one company with one standard across every store.
What is the difference between FOCO and FOFO?
In FOFO (franchise owned, franchise operated) you buy the brand and run the store yourself — staff, kitchen, suppliers, daily operations. In FOCO (franchise owned, company operated) you own the store and the brand runs it. Xin is FOCO: you invest, we operate, you keep the operating profit after our fee.
Is there a minimum guarantee or royalty?
There is no minimum guarantee asked of you. Xin charges an operating fee for running the store; the full commercials, including that fee, are opened at a Xin Table under NDA.
Do I need to own the property?
Owned sites make the best economics and are our first filter. A long lease also works if it runs at least as long as the five-year agreement and carries no revenue share above ten percent.
How long is the agreement?
Five years from opening, renewable, and aligned to your lease.
Next step
Read the partner page, then apply for a Xin Table. The next dinner date and venue are on the page.
