{"id":1378,"date":"2009-02-28T00:24:48","date_gmt":"2009-02-27T22:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=1378"},"modified":"2009-02-28T00:24:48","modified_gmt":"2009-02-27T22:24:48","slug":"madame-zingara-rip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/cape-town\/madame-zingara-rip\/","title":{"rendered":"Madame Zingara : RIP"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Madame Zingara is dead!\u00a0\u00a0 The ‘Theatre of Dreams’ circus theatre restaurant, which was created as a result of a fire in the original Madame Zingara premises in Loop Street in Cape Town, went into final liquidation yesterday.<\/p>\n

Madame Zingara owner and “ringmaster, Richard Griffin, appears to have over-extended himself, in taking his Madame Zingara to London in December, at the same time that he opened Mojolena, a sister theatre restaurant, but on a much smaller scale, in Cape Town, so that he could continue employing the staff that could not get visas to go to the UK.\u00a0\u00a0 His backers in the UK pulled out due to the credit crunch, while unpaid debts in Cape Town led to the liquidation.<\/p>\n

Whilst Madame Zingara opened to sold-out nights at the Battersea Power Station in London in December, it was a fantastic “advertisement” for South African creativity, and the culinary and cultural marriage.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 However, the marketing damage of the closure in London is bad for the country, as the Time Out website, which had featured a very favourable review, is filled with comments\u00a0from persons who had booked and paid for the dinner and show, but who do not appear to be able to receive their money back.\u00a0\u00a0 Griffin’s South African origin is mentioned in the comments.<\/p>\n

Griffin also has unpleasant culpable homicide and attempted murder charges hanging over his head, resulting from an accident in 2006, in which a pedestrian died and another was injured, with Griffin allegedly driving into them, reports the Cape Argus<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Madame Zingara is dead!\u00a0\u00a0 The ‘Theatre of Dreams’ circus theatre restaurant, which was created as a result of a fire in the original Madame Zingara premises in Loop Street in Cape Town, went into final liquidation yesterday. Madame Zingara owner and “ringmaster, Richard Griffin, appears to have over-extended himself, in taking his Madame Zingara to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[3,20,22],"tags":[32366,306,303,307,13,305],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t