Kaunda Selisho

By Kaunda Selisho

Journalist


Buns Out Linden closes doors amid never-ending load shedding

The challenges of operating without electricity under advanced stages of load shedding have proven to be too much for Buns Out.


After exactly three years in the business, Maps Maponyane’s Buns Out Linden has had to shut its doors once again. 

This time, the closure is owed to the challenges of doing business with little to no electricity throughout the day as South Africa stuggles through interchanging levels of stage 4 and 5 load shedding. 

“With heavy heart today we announce the closing of our Linden store. Our last day will be on the 9th of October and we will be having a huge send-off! See you there,” read the announcement shared on Twitter. 

“Don’t fold,” pleaded one fan to which Buns Out replied “We are still fighting. [We] have a store out at the Prison Break Market and we will be back when we can open a store with a generator”.

This comes after a series of complaints about load shedding via their Twitter account. 

“We are closed for today unfortunately due to stage 6 load shedding we get 3 hours of power in a 9 hour trading day. As such, without a generator, we cannot provide the best possible product. We apologise for the inconvenience,” said Buns Out. 

Maps Maponyane co-founder of Buns Out. Picture: Supplied

“Stage 5 load shedding is absurd! How to operate as a business? And maybe instead of playing the blame game, we could just set about fixing it?”

Buns Out Linden first opened in late 2019, to much fanfare all in support of its famous and beloved owner, Maps. 

In February 2020, it was named one of world’s best burger joints only for it to close indefinitey a month later as a result of the pandemic. 

The shop went on to re-open with the franchise expanding in the middle of the pandemic with two new stores in Rosebank and Norwood. Sadly, the Rosebank store closed at some point as did the Norwood branch and now the original store is following the same fate. 

READ NEXT: One less restaurant: Buns Out Rosebank closes

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