The Kaapi Nirvana came frothy and chilled. But behind the counter hung an air of uncertainty.

Across Café Coffee Day stores in Calcutta, the employees worked as usual. But like many outside they had questions for which they had no answers.

A patron at the Golpark outlet wanted to know about the disappearance of (CCD founder and chairman) V.G. Siddhartha, the store manager said.

“I told him there was no internal communication. News on TV and updates on Facebook and WhatsApp are the only sources of information for us as well,” the manager told Metro.

The Golpark store had two of the eight tables occupied. “A couple of years ago, you would not get a place to sit in the evening,” said an employee. The footfall at the store has gone down since the emergence of food delivery apps and other chains, he said.

The homegrown café chain, credited with promoting a coffee culture in a traditionally tea-loving country, has been facing a tough competition not just from international chains like Starbucks but also various domestic players and concept cafes.

A few kilometres away, the chain’s flagship outlet on Park Street had around 10 customers. Arti Tandon, who lives in Delhi, and her septuagenarian mother, were among them.

Told about the chairman going missing, Arti said the controversy reminded her of P. Rajagopal, the founder of Saravana Bhavan, who died on July 18. Rajagopal was serving a life term for the murder of an employee.

“Café Coffee Day has a goodwill. I think customers will keep visiting CCD as they always have,” said Arti. Her mother, who lives “just around the corner”, is also a regular patron at CCD and loves the café frappe.

Asked about the events surrounding Siddhartha’s disappearance, an employee said: “We are just employees. How would we know these details?”

A couple of patrons at the Park Street store enquired about Siddhartha and he gave them the same reply, the employee said. “All kinds of things are being circulated on the social media. One of the patrons asked us if the stores were facing imminent closure,” he said.

An employee at the Sarat Bose Road outlet said he had seen the letter attributed to Siddhartha that had been doing the rounds on social media. “There was a similar tension two years ago when we heard of some tax-related trouble,” said the employee. He was possibly referring to the 2017 income tax raids on Siddhartha’s office in Bangalore.

But there were no signs of financial trouble on the daily logistics, said multiple employees.

The stores receive food and beverage supplies from a central kitchen every week. There was no dip in supplies. The salaries had also been credited on the seventh of every month, they added.