The first year of Chete Pute was a small experiment by two old friends, Partha Saha, of Theism Events, and Sajal Ghosh, of Moddho Kolkata Club Samannay Samiti. These friends wanted to create a new, unique food festival, in a city that loves its plates.
Theism Events, being equipped with the ability to deliver this event logistically and financially, partnered with the ambitious Moddho Kolkata Club Samannay Samiti to bring to the heart of this beautiful city, an event that would become very famous in the years to come. So appeared a new food festival, that instantly became the talk of the town. Great food joints, even those that had never worked on food fairs or festivals before, began to show interest in booking stalls here. On the day of the event, the famous Tollywood actress, Rachana Banerjee arrived to inaugurate the venue.
Chete Pute became a ticketed and token based event in its primary year itself. Tokens would be pre-purchased and people would buy their choicest delicacies using it as a currency! Musical performances began to light up the evenings, and soon, everybody liked the concept of this new festival happening in Santosh Mitra Square. Concluding the response, it was decided among the two friends that they would do the same with each successive year.
Having gained much media coverage and fanfare in its first year itself, Chete Pute returned to Santosh Mitra Square in 2018 with fresh energy for its second season. This time, it was Bengali film actress Aparajita Auddy who inaugurated the event. The number stalls had to be increased, to accommodate the growing interest that restaurants and food joints across the city were showing in favour of this relatively new food festival. Food joints like Dada Boudi's Hotel and Balaram Mullick attracted queues within the venue, and the city came to watch as the stage went live each evening.
It was also in this season that the organisers of Chete Pute 2020 introduced the system of fixed rate for stalls. Stall owners were universally required to participate by paying a small fee, and in return, were provided with a furnished stall. Sales at the event were directly credited to the stall owners and the system of profit sharing was dissolved. As a result, stalls began to see an upward rise in the profits acquired from event sales. This would later help the food festival garner trust and continued association from several leading restaurants.
In the second season, Chete Pute took the noble initiative of providing a hot meal on one of the evenings to 500 orphaned children from a nearby shelter. This was done at the cost of the organisers, and was seen as a small attempt to share the festivity of this food fair with those who could not afford or visit it.
After two successful seasons, Kolkata more or less knew that Santosh Mitra Square is home to the largest and most well sought food festival in the city. In spite of the massive branding that Chete Pute prides itself in, and which touches the far corners of the city, people began to speak of the event in colloquial terms. Chete Pute became a household name among food lovers and in the restaurant industry. It was soon covered by food bloggers and food vloggers across the city, and through them reached more and more people online.
This year too, like the previous, the organisers agreed on the fixed rate method of stall acquisition. With the participation of state owned outlets like Mother Dairy, West Bengal Fisheries and West Bengal Livestock Development Corporation (popularised as Haringhata Meat), the food festival had a lovely display of public and private stalls. Attractions such as the "Bamboo Biryani" : the tender Indian biryani cooked in a bamboo shoot over a hot grill and the gigantic sweetmeats from Surya Kr. Modak were popular with the press and public alike.
Once again, with the arrival of the wintry evening, the stage came live with the majestic performances of all the artists. Celebrities paid their visits and after four successful days of fun and frolic, Chete Pute closed its gates on the 13th of January, 2019 with a very high turnover.
This season is scheduled to be held from 9th to 12th of January 2020. The title sponsor of this season is Mukharochak, and will see the participation of corporates such as Mio Amore, Zebronics, Monster Energy. In this season, Chete Pute earned its own website. Season 4 will be popularised as Kolkata's favourite food festival, which it rightfully is, and will see the active participation of officers in uniform from the Kolkata Police Force, who shall use this platform to create awareness among citizens about social causes.