Coffee, Catch-ups, and the New Year Conundrum!
This year is all about kindness, fun, and never giving up great coffee. Let’s make 2026 the best one yet! ☕✨
“Happy New Year” – welcome to 2026 and all of the best for the year ahead – that is the standard greeting for the next few days. Every year, I try to ascertain the correct protocol for when you should stop saying ‘Happy New Year’, whether it is the first week of January, mid-January, the start of February or is it applicable to everyone you meet for the first time in a new year? In all honesty, there is no steadfast rule that applies, and it’s pretty much each to their own – if it makes you happy to blurt it out near Easter, you should do just that!
Added to the conundrum is that awkward week between Boxing Day and the New Year, you know, the week where you’re not quite sure what day it is, where you are killing time between meals and always asking what sport is on TV today?
Then, to top it all off, your favourite independent coffee shops and cafés are closed. I was caught in this limbo while trying to schedule a long-overdue get-together with Benoni singer, entrepreneur, and live-wire hustler Mitchell Godwin – thankfully, one of Benoni’s premium coffee/café/eateries, The Shed & Silo, was open. Mitchell and I headed off to the plots on the outskirts of town to enjoy the tranquility, hospitality, flavoursome, fresh food and of course excellent coffee that the Shed & Silo has to offer. Next time you visit Shed & Silo, be sure to say hello to Thabiso, their talented barista. After 20 years of experience, Thabiso has perfected the craft – he makes an excellent cortado.
While Mitchell spends a lot of his time these days between LA, New York, Cape Town and Benoni, it’s great to know that Shed & Silo is still one of his favourites.
Our conversation drifted from the ‘how was your year’, ‘did you have a good Christmas’, ‘how’s the family’ and onto the pressing subject of New Year’s Resolutions. Mitchell and I joked about and analysed the various categories of options for resolutions and packaged them into the following lanes: ‘want to do’, ‘would like to do’, ‘need to do’, and ‘absolutely have to do’. While most of us are impressed with ourselves for sticking to a resolution beyond January 2nd, I’m heading into the new year with the goal of being kind, having fun, and drinking more good coffee. As Mitchell proclaimed, “I can give up a lot of things, Coffee isn’t one of them!”
