Meet Shikha Chaudhary: Former IAF wing commander opens café after 14 years

For 14 years, Wing Commander (Retd) Shikha Chaudhary’s mission was to take care of aircraft. She worked in an environment where discipline and accountability were non-negotiable.

As a technical officer in the Indian Air Force, she was responsible for keeping aircraft mission-ready, managing personnel and coordinating operations. There was no scope for even a small oversight.But today, her responsibilities look very different. Instead of maintaining aircraft, she focuses on customers, coffee cups and team management at Jessiea’s Café in Mumbai.Transition from the Indian Air Force to entrepreneurship might look unusual, but for Chaudhary, the two worlds are connected by a common goal which is service.Talking to Times of India, she said, “Retirement for me was never about ending the service. It was about finding a new way to serve. In the Air Force I served the nation and its people. Through a café I get to serve my community one person at a time”.Jessiea’s Café, which opened in November 2025, was not simply an attempt to enter the hospitality business. She wanted to create a space where people could meet, feel welcome and experience a sense of belonging.

In many ways, she says, her “uniform changed, but the spirit of service remained the same”.From keeping aircraft mission-ready to building a business

Chaudhary’s career in the Indian Air Force demanded much more than technical expertise. As a technical officer, her main responsibility was to ensure that the aircraft under her charge met the highest standards of airworthiness and operational readiness.Elaborating about her work in force, she told us that her work involved managing the human and logistical aspects of operations.“As a Technical Officer in the Indian Air Force, my role went far beyond aircraft maintenance. My primary responsibility was to ensure that all aircraft under my charge were maintained to the highest standards of airworthiness and operational readiness”.She also managed the HR responsibilities of around 100 to 150 airmen at any given time, including their personal needs and performance appraisals.A role that taught her the importance of leadership

She further says, “I also oversaw logistics such as the movement of spare parts to and from between units and repair agencies and coordinated personnel movements for various assignments.

In addition, I was involved in organising events and managing several other operational responsibilities”.These roles guided her in my entrepreneurial journey today.Those years have shaped how she approaches her business today“The Air Force taught me that excellence is not a one-time activity. It is a habit built through the smallest things done right every single day, every single time,” she says.She draws a parallel between ensuring an aircraft is ready for a mission and making sure a customer has a positive experience at her café.“You cannot compromise on the details because people place their trust in you. Today, I may have traded aircraft for coffee cups, but the mindset remains unchanged: take ownership, serve with sincerity and never settle for just good enough,” she adds.For Chaudhary, this is not merely a motivational principle. It is a practical approach to running a business where consistency, customer experience and teamwork can determine whether someone chooses to return.Why a café after a career in uniform?

Starting a café after more than a decade in the armed forces may seem like a sharp career turn. But Chaudhary’s motivation was rooted in something she already understood: the importance of people and service.A café offered her an opportunity to build a community around an everyday experience. People could walk in for food or a drink, meet friends, spend time with family or simply find a welcoming place outside their usual routines.For her, the idea was to create more than another commercial establishment. She wanted Jessiea’s to become a place where people felt comfortable enough to return.In the Air Force, service was tied to national duty. At the café, it is expressed through hospitality and the experience she hopes to offer each guest.The business is still in its early stages, and Chaudhary is realistic about the work involved in establishing a customer base and building a distinct identity.“It was a significant investment, both financially and personally, because I wanted to build something meaningful rather than just another café,” she says.She says the response so far has been encouraging. The café has already begun attracting repeat customers, something she considers an important indicator of the trust it is building.“We’re still in the early stages of building our identity and growing our customer base, but the response has been encouraging.

For me, success is not just about numbers. It’s about seeing people walk in, enjoy the experience and come back again,” she says.“We have numerous repeat guests and I think that says it all.”The hardest part of the transition“The hardest part was not learning the business, but finding the right people”, says Shikha.In the Air Force, Chaudhary was accustomed to working with colleagues who understood their responsibilities.

In the hospitality business, she had to build a team in an unfamiliar professional environment.The leadership skills she developed during her military career remain valuable, but applying them in a new setting requires adaptation. A café team operates in a different environment from a technical unit, and maintaining high standards also means understanding the demands of customer service and hospitality.For her, the task is to build a culture in which people take ownership of their work rather than simply complete assigned duties.What she wants women to know about starting over in their 30s and 40sFor women who have spent years building a career but are considering a different path in their thirties or forties, the prospect of beginning again can be intimidating.But Shikha says, “You’re not starting from scratch; you’re starting with years of experience, knowledge and wisdom behind you”.Her own transition is a personal example how professional experience can be carried into a seemingly unrelated field.

The technical knowledge she developed in the Air Force may not directly translate into preparing a café menu, but the habits of planning, managing people, maintaining standards and taking responsibility remain relevant.She encourages women to trust what they have already learnt, even when they choose a career that looks completely different from their previous one.“Don’t let the fear of starting over stop you from starting something you truly believe in.

Take that leap of faith, trust your abilities and remember that it’s never too late to reinvent yourself. Sometimes the bravest decision is to choose growth over comfort,” she says.Her message is not that a career transition is easy. Finding the right people, building customer trust and establishing a business takes time. Rather, it is that the experience accumulated over years does not disappear when a person changes professions.A different uniform, the same sense of purpose

The larger ambition is to build something sustainable, guided by the values that shaped her years in the Air Force.Her journey is also a reminder that reinvention does not always mean abandoning the person one was before. Sometimes it means carrying familiar strengths into unfamiliar territory. And for a woman who spent 14 years in uniform, her next mission is taking one customer, one cup of coffee and one returning guest at a time.