In a tribute to VG Siddhartha, Captain Gopinath of Air Deccan wrote, “Before (Café) Coffee Day, even in the South, the middle class went to Udupi hotels to read papers over coffee and chat and sip coffee with friends. The Udupi hotels were the favourite hangout places for Kannada writers. The journalists and writers of English press went to a few select coffee houses in the cantonment area. The modern youth never visited them. Siddhartha changed all that — the entire cultural landscape — through his ubiquitous coffee shops, both in the South and the rest of India where very few drank coffee (but) spent hours over books or laptops or simply unwinding with friends”.