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Surf boards. Sugar skulls. A fish vortex. Suspended jellies. The shy octopus. Long John Silver, peg-legged and fearsome. Casting a beady pirate’s eyes over ice-hot pool tables (they have a steely glint) on gleaming checkerboard tiles. A loo sign with arrows reads: “Men to the left because women are always right.” Touché. Masks. Cocktails. Sushi platters. Mammoth burgers and finger-licking buffalo wings piled high. Garlic prawns whispering “chew-on-me”.
Except for the deboned mutton bunny, I might wonder if I have been spirited to a delightful and entertainingly eccentric diner-bar in one of any number of funky California coastal towns. If only I could play ignorance-is-bliss and forget I was here, two days ago, for half-price-sushi Wednesday.
Some have survived. A few are thriving. Many have gone for good. Others are limping along. There are the optimists, the risk-takers, the resourceful, the resilient, the innovative and chefs with Covid-19. New ideas. New directions. New restaurants springing up. All this when the closest anyone can get to a new normal is the hunger for it. The only certainty: uncertainty.
So, who would have imagined this scenario?
On Thursday 20 February 2020 I meet US friends from near Chicago at 9th Avenue Waterside. It is their first visit to Durban. I make the reservation when they say: “We want to take you for dinner somewhere really special. You choose.”