New Café Opens in Somerset West — Has Identity Crisis by Thursday
A new café that opened in Somerset West on Monday with a clearly articulated concept, a coherent menu, a considered aesthetic and what the owner described as “a very clear vision of what we are and who we’re for” had by Thursday afternoon reconsidered all of it following a conversation with someone whose opinion she had solicited over coffee, which in retrospect may have been a structural error.
“We were going industrial-rustic,” a staff member explained, gesturing at a fit-out that now appeared to be in the middle of becoming something else. “Now we’re thinking coastal-botanical. The pressed-tin ceiling is staying, we’re committed to that. And the single-origin Ethiopian is definitely staying. Most other things are in conversation.”
By Wednesday, three regular customers who had come in twice already had been asked their opinion and given it. A food blogger who happened to visit on Tuesday had posted something that was broadly positive but contained one phrase about the menu being “still finding its feet” that had been read eleven times by the owner before 8am on Wednesday morning. A Somerset West resident who considers herself an authority on hospitality had dropped in and suggested, in the helpful tone of someone who does not imagine their help is unwelcome, that the space “could be so much more with a few tweaks,” which she then listed in detail.
The menu has been reprinted. The plants arrived on Friday. The chalk board has been redrawn in a different font and erased and redrawn again. The coffee remains excellent throughout, which several customers note may be the thing that was never in question.