The Market Café Restaurant on Gladys Mazibuko Road in Morningside turned down the kitchen heat, switched off their lights and closed their doors for the last time on Sunday, 21 May, as the pressure of looting, flooding and loadshedding made recovery impossible for current owner, Avril Bedderson De Klerk.
“I feel absolutely heartbroken. I can feel the spirit of my staff; it is not the normal spirit that I would feel when they come in on a Sunday. It is a very painful situation. The restaurant has been here since 2007, and closing down is the only decision we were left with,” said De Klerk.
The restaurant is one of many businesses in KwaZulu-Natal that are finding it difficult to stay afloat with natural disasters and man-made conflict disrupting daily operations.
“We had six months of being closed during Covid. Fortunately, we were able to come back and rejuvenate ourselves, and reinvent ourselves. But even when we came back, we had restrictions. In 2021, we had the looting. In 2022, we had flooding. You can only bring yourself back so many times; always going into funds that you should not be touching, but now even those funds are no longer available,” said De Klerk.
With the impending loadshedding schedule re-adjustment, De Klerk says loadshedding also affects the dinners.
“We tried things to combat loadshedding. Getting a generator was not one of our options for financial reasons, so we decided to change our globes to rechargeable ones; we brought in emergency lights and we created a menu which was called Stage Nine, for which we didn’t have to have electricity.
“We tried doing things to sustain us and keep our doors open, but once you’ve done all those things and you’re still not getting the kind of business that you expect to get, then you have no choice, no options. We are still struggling because we are not getting the same kind of foot count that we used to.
“If, for example, you know you are finishing work and then going home to loadshedding, are you going to sit in a restaurant or are you going to go home? Because typically you have homework, ironing, cooking; you have all of those things to do in the little time that you have electricity before there is loadshedding,” she said.
De Klerk said that another concern is safety.
“Are you going to come out for dinner? We can have the lights on here but on the streets, there are no lights. So there is the safety aspect to that as well. So from my point of view – from a woman’s point of view – if I know I am driving home during loadshedding, will my gate open when I get home? Will I be watched or followed as I drive home?” questioned De Klerk.
She said that they are not the only business that has closed down and she doesn’t think that they will be the last.
“If we are going to be affected from stage 1, whereby we were only affected from stage 4 onwards and we couldn’t survive, how would one survive then? There’s a lot more businesses that won’t survive,” said De Klerk.
Commenting on Market Café Restaurant’s Facebook Page, Rishaal Soni said: “Loadshedding is killing the economy. Small businesses are the hardest hit and it is heartbreaking that you guys are closing down. At the same time, it is understandable as the cost of combating loadshedding is astronomical.”
Pauline Quant said: “Won’t be the last business to close. All the jobs that will be lost, more unemployed people.”
And conveying the sadness felt by more than one hundred comments, Lauren Ginn said: “Really sorry to hear this. A truly magnificent restaurant.”
