Well-known Madame Zingara, a theatre restaurant which captured the imagination of Capetonians over the past 10 years, before it closed due to the recession early last year, is set to re-open next month, reports the Weekend Argus.
Owner Richard Griffin is a star showmaster and was a highly successful restaurateur, until his original restaurant on Loop Street burnt down. He set up his Theatre of Dreams vaudeville supper club underneath the highway near the Cape Town harbour, and moved the show to London due to its success. Here a backer dropped him, and Griffin’s company was liquidated. He has been back in operation “undercover” as the operator of the Bombay Bicycle Club at the top of Kloof Street.
According to the report, Griffin said: “We have taken our time in hiatus to develop some truly breathtaking new acts. Everything will be bigger, better, more dramatic. We’ve let our imagination run wild and come up with some acts that I haven’t seen or heard of anywhere else in the wrold”.
Madame Zingara’s Theatre of Dreams is set to be located at Century City, according to the report, and her ‘2010 Love Magic Tour’ will commence in Cape Town, and thereafter will tour to Durban and Johannesburg.
It will be interesting to see how the re-opening of Madame Zingara will affect Vaudeville, if at all, as most of Madame Zingara’s waitering staff as well as performing stars went to Vaudeville when it opened in Cape Town late last year.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com
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hi
i need to correct Ms von Ulmenstein in one regard…we at Vaudeville did not recruit from Madame Zingara’s ex staff base, in fact only 4 out of 20 of my floorstaff once worked at Madame Zingara’s Theatre of Dreams, and only 2 of our performers worked in their show. I intentionally did not want to inherit the ethos that surrounded Zingara’s staff, and hand picked my waiters accordingly.
regards
Jennifer (GM Vaudeville)
I was at the first Zingara staff meeting and saw lots of familiar faces!
Come now Jen we both know that’s not true unless you’ve had mass resignations lately!
Now I have to say that Factually Jennifer is correct, and the facts surrounding Zingaras liquidation and current return are however not completely factual.
Did you know that the Staff were given a days notice that they would be out of work in london and many of them have not yet recieved (and probably will not ever recieve) thier contracts paid out, theres thousands of pounds owed to various artists and not to mention staff in london that were kept in the dark. they were also then given 5 days to move out of the accomodation and fend for themselves, many of the performers and waiting staff were left to pay thier own ways back to SA. and have not had any contact with Zingara since then, of course performers move from show to show, so what would the problem be that 2 of the performers who worked at Zingara now work at Vaudeville (an establishment I might add has a much better work ethic) that said I hope Zingara gets back on its feet, there are still somewonderful people employed there.
but remember this, people are not beholden to one place just because they worked there once. Vaudeville is a totally different entity to Zingara
what’s the fuss for, there is room for both and whilst there are some similarities they are quite different places. Everyone has their side of the story to tell, saying that I saw many old Zingara staff working there when i went the other night – that kinda speaks volumes.