Shayne Robinson’s daily vlog: City Perks up
JOHANNESBURG – Great coffee and a fantastic atmosphere are what greet you the second you step through the door of the City Perk Café in the Joburg CBD.
The Main Street Mall in central Johannesburg is a perfect example of what is possible for our city.
It is filled with tourists who are walking the streets and spending that tourist dollar in shops that most South Africans don’t even know exist. One of the venues on Main Street that is really making a change to the area is the City Perk Café. Owner of the café, Alexi Lambropoulos has created a great space for tourists, residents and suburbanites to come and enjoy the city in a safe environment.
Lambropoulos and his wife bought the restaurant three years ago after returning to South Africa from the UK. “The cool thing about this area… is that a lot of people are coming out of their offices at lunchtime. There is a very cool vibe within this area over here, people coming out, they are coming to eat, they are coming to have a coffee,” said Lambropoulos.
They also have a passion for art and music and have offered the walls of their restaurant to local artists to hang their work. “We give local artists, who don’t have a platform to exhibit their work, space in our restaurant,” said Lambropoulos.
Another great initiative that is happening at Main Street Mall is the addition of buskers every Thursday. “On a Thursday there is a programme in conjunction with the management of Main Street Mall, with about six or seven buskers and they create a very cool vibe.”
This busker project is a pilot project to see how it works and will hopefully be rolled out to more than just the one day a week.
There is just so much happening in the inner city and, as Lambropoulos put it, it is an exciting place to be.
