It is curious, isn’t it, how life is like walking through a maze.
All your hopes and fears build up in your imagination so you form a picture of what lies ahead, then you turn a corner and it’s not at all what you expected.
The Rencken brothers must have experienced a lurch in their hearts when The Ballito Junction expansion project was launched three years ago.
R1.4 billion can buy an awful lot of attractions to draw customers away, a huge spend compared to the R90 or so million they’d borrowed back in 2001 to build the Lifestyle Centre.
They’d been top of the pile for a long time until the Jo’burg developers muscled in. But as the saying goes, ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going,’ and the boys from Mandeni dreamt up the concept of a food market. More than a few people I talked to rolled their eyes and said they doubted the Renckens could improve on what the Junction had to offer.
And what, MORE foodie places in Ballito?
Come on, there are about 100 restaurants and takeaways in the town already! I ran into Bruce and Paul a few times over the past year or so and were they sweating!
With all the construction and hordes of workmen over the past six months, some took a pass and went elsewhere.
Nevertheless, they promised the market and upgrades to the centre would be ready by November and last week it happened.
I have visited a lot of food markets – in Europe, North and South America, the Middle East and Africa.
They have ranged in quality from great to unspeakable.
Top of the range are those in New York, London, Barcelona and Istanbul, those in La Paz, Nairobi and Maputo less so. But I am the first to admit that is an entirely subjective view.
The people who live there, those who are out doing their daily shopping and eating, flock there in their hordes. The sign of a good market is the noise of people talking, shouting, laughing and bargaining. It’s as much a social occasion as a shopping expedition, a different experience from the orderly setting of supermarkets.
The modern-day market aims to be a culinary sensation led by celebrity chefs and innovative start-ups alike.
You might pay more than you would have at the public market or the supermarket, but then you are paying, as they say in posh circles, for the ambience!
They’ve done a cracking job at Lifestyle. The design is simple and clean. It’s not big, but big enough to turn a few corners and be surprised. The place was packed and noisy last weekend and I saw so many locals it was like one of the old village fêtes.
There’s the butcher, the baker and maybe not the candlestick maker, but plenty else, like a craft beer pub, pizza, ice-cream, sushi, coffee, organic veg and more.
Our friend Didee Weare and her daughters were swamped for their prepacked meals, ideal for everyone not so keen on cooking. You gotta eat! Didee’s late husband, Delisle, would be proud of her. Very importantly, everyone was having a great time and raving about it.
The Renckens were grinning from ear to ear. That’s what I meant about life being a maze – three years ago they may have thought they were staring down the barrel of a gun, now they have staged a coup. Advantage Lifestyle. Bruce was hopping up and down like a demented jumping bean he was so happy. I asked if he was relieved at the result.
“All I want to do is go home and sleep!” he said, but he could not stay away because I saw him there celebrating with his wife, Jenny, and friends on Friday night when I went to collect a pizza. Good pizza, too!
* * *
A tough looking group of hairy bikers are riding when they see a girl about to jump off a bridge, so they stop. The leader, a big burly man, gets off his bike and says, “What are you doing?” “I’m going to commit suicide,” she says.
While he doesn’t want to appear insensitive, he also doesn’t want to miss an opportunity, so he asks, “Well, before you jump, why don’t you give me a kiss?”
She does, and it is a long, deep, lingering kiss. After she’s finished, the tough, hairy biker says, “Wow! That was the best kiss I’ve ever had! That’s a real talent you’re wasting. You could be famous. Why are you committing suicide?”
“My parents don’t like me dressing up like a girl…”
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