Tag Archives: Koi

Few restaurant closures and openings in Cape Town and Winelands in Winter 2015!

August 3, 2015

Winter is almost over, and we are delighted to report that few restaurants have closed down in the past few cold months. By the same token, few new restaurants have opened. Heartbreaking was the fire which closed down The Stack one week after it opened last month in Leinster Hall in Gardens. We update information about newly opened and closed restaurants continuously.

Restaurant Openings

* De Warenmarkt has opened in Stellenbosch, a mix of market, deli, bar, and pop-up restaurant (photograph) Continue reading →

Why do hotel restaurants not have better patron support and win awards?

March 22, 2015

It was a recent article by Nick Lander, husband of renowned wine critic Jancis Robinson and restaurant critic in the UK, about restaurants in hotels he had visited in Dubai that made me consider once again why hotel restaurants fare so poorly in patron support and in the Eat Out Top 10 restaurant awards in our country.

Lander writes that specific rules about restaurants and liquor licences force restaurants to be linked to hotels in Dubai. In our country no such rules apply, and as a service to guests, hotels have over the years added dining facilities, in early days being the only restaurants offering tea and cake, and lunch and dunner. My parents drove us with overseas visitors to Franschhoek’s Swiss Farm Excelsior (now the Le Franschhoek Hotel), the benchmark of restaurants in those years.

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Arrival of winter likely to freeze Cape Town and Winelands restaurant income!

June 2, 2013

The first taste of the Cape winter this weekend is likely to be felt by the restaurant industry, which will see hard times in the next two months, if close to zero accommodation bookings in the Cape are anything to go by. Other than Hermanus FynArts and the Wacky Wine Weekend kicking off next week, ‘Cook Franschhoek‘ running over the Youth Day long weekend, and the Bastille Festival weekend on 13 – 14 July, no significant events are planned to attract visitors to Cape Town and the Winelands. A number of restaurants are closing for an annual break in the next two months.