You’d expect to meet the proprietor of Pecos, Bengaluru’s storied pub which had created a flutter by announcing its initial public offering (IPO), in a setting akin to the grungy interiors held dear by patrons. But the contrast could not have been starker.The white-haired Collin Timms looks distinguished in his striped shirt and blue suit jacket, his spacious office even more so, with its wooden floors, muted red walls and models of ships in full sail at the back. This, you will realise, is more in tune with the other hats he wears, of chairman of a cooperative bank and microfinance institution, among others.News of the IPO had aroused curiosity and perplexity in equal measure — why was a local chain of four pubs, known for classic rock and cheap draught beer, looking to raise money through the capital market? “We’ve always been a debt-free company, and we want to keep it that way,” is the founder’s rationale. Thus, loans were a “no-no” and private equity, he realised, views business very differently. “We have a style in which we run our business.Even when we grow outside Bengaluru, which is the eventual plan, we don’t want to change our ethos of cheap beer and an affordable place.” Only someone who understands the philosophy of Pecos, he felt, would identify with it and, thus, an IPO.

Unconventional? Maybe, but no less so than Timms’ own story and that of his pub, which went on to attain cult status among rock music lovers, even outside Bengaluru. The civil engineer-turned entrepreneur first came to the city when he was 26, after a stint in West Asia and instantly decided this was where he would settle down, rather than Mumbai, where he grew up. “I’ve been poor in Bombay, and that’s no fun. People eat vada pav as a novelty — I’ve eaten it as my only meal of the day,” he says.

On his fourth day in Bengaluru, he bought the property on Rest House Road that houses Pecos, just off Brigade Road, then the city’s buzzing high street. It opened its doors in 1987 as a Mexican restaurant, inspired by the Taco Bells which Timms had seen abroad. Except that it “bombed” (his words). The restaurant was losing money “hand over fist” when someone suggested serving beer.Clueless, he approached United Breweries, who agreed to supply beer provided he got an excise licence. This he managed, but only after 137 visits to the excise department office. “But I didn’t pay a single rupee as bribe,” he adds with justifiable pride. Considering the losses that had piled up, the young proprietor had no choice but to roll up his sleeves and work at the pub himself.As consolation, he began playing his collection of retro rock and blues cassettes. “Customers started asking for more of the kind of music we were playing and then began bringing their tapes. The collection kept growing and people even donated original rock concert posters.” Those Grateful Dead and David Bowie posters still adorn the walls of the original Pecos on Rest House Road while branches have framed replicas.Those Were the Days, My Friend Giving those magnetic cassettes was “the next step of induction”, says Roby Mathew, a former advertising executive who used to haunt Pecos in the late ’90s. The first, the way Mathew tells it, is when you are walking down Brigade Road, an inevitable part of a visit to Bengaluru in those days. Lured by the music, you walk in, and find yourself in an “unpretentious, music-loving place with great food.” And just like that, you’re hooked.Jithela Yohannan, an advertising executive who first visited Pecos nearly a decade after Mathew, echoes part of his sentiments. “It’s a comfortable place where you can be yourself and no one would judge you.” Advertising, Mathews says, was one of the professions which embraced Pecos, with many a job interview held there, and people like Balki and Alyque Padamsee popping in when they visited. Timms agrees. His description of a typical client is someone creative, like a copywriter, designer or artist. “Generally, it’s a person who’s not trying to impress anyone. And of course, he likes ’60s and ’70s rock music.”But it was not just advertising folks chugging beer and singing along with The Velvet Underground. Siddhartha George, now a partner at a Bengaluru law firm, recalls the place being full of fellow National Law School-ites on weekends. “There’s still no place that can match the feeling of staggering back to your hostel room three sheets to the wind and discovering some leftover popcorn in your pocket,” he adds.But apart from Yohannan, who still goes to Pecos, other regulars have stopped, for a variety of reasons. Mathew blames it on the crowds that washed up with the software tide, a favourite gripe of old Bangaloreans. For Kavitha Nathaniel, it was “the diluted beer” though she holds that Pecos still plays the best music and she wouldn’t mind going even now. George says it has become “shady” and, for an experience similar to what Pecos once offered, prefers Tavern and Watsons. But he still plans to subscribe to the IPO. “It’s a nostalgia trip, pure and simple. Some oldschool football clubs have a community ownership model — that’s the way I’m thinking about this as well.”Timms says he is not too nervous about the IPO, which closes Monday, because there’s been a “deluge of interest” since the announcement appeared. The fresh capital would be used to introduce the centralised management system which he says is essential for expansion. A couple of new outlets in Bengaluru are on the cards and later, other cities. Refurbishment is another priority. You may just hear an imaginary sigh of relief from even the most loyal Pecos fans when he adds with a smile, “A lot of people have been complaining about our toilets, for instance. We want to spend money on that.” When this writer called him on Friday evening, he said his merchant banker told him a clear picture would emerge only on Monday and remains confident of the issue’s success. “One of the things we are grateful for,” he says, “is that we’ll never go out of style. That’s because when we started in 1989, we were already out of style.”