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www.thevillagenews.co.za
05 December 2018 | FOOD
The history of the Grotto summer lounge site
& DINE WINE
LISTINGS
Writer Dr Robin Lee
M
eeting places for friends to share a drink, an ice-cream or a meal were a feature of old Hermanus. ‘Visitors’ and ‘guests’ (tourists, we might call them) and residents with a little cash and spare time created a market. And entrepreneurs in the town responded. However, many opened, but few stayed open for long enough to become institutions. I have collected the names of more than 30 establishments that were popular in their time and are still remembered. In a new series of articles, we’ll look at some of these more closely. What was their target clientele? When did they operate? Who were the moving spirits behind each one? Where are they now? We turn first of all to an enterprise that started out as The Goldfish Café on Grotto Beach. Goldfish Café For more than 50 years, between 1946 and the late 1990s, this business operated at a prime site on what is now the Blue Flag portion of Grotto Beach. It went under at least three names: The Goldfish Café; The Driftwood Den; and the Nautilus. It’s a prime site and much in the news lately. A fire destroyed the building in the late 1990s and the site was vacant for years until Dutchies Restaurant started to operate a summer cocktail lounge there a few years ago. It was very popular among locals and visitors alike. The municipality recently called for proposals for this year’s season and the lease was eventually awarded to Alan de Kock, whose Sundown Lounge is expected to open there soon. The original Goldfish Café was built by Jack and Charlie Carstens in 1946. They also built an apartment alongside the café, perhaps intending to stay there overnight when necessary. However, they had a fine home called Avalon in 7th Street, Voëlklip, where the guesthouse, Milkwood Lodge is today. So the Carstens never used the apartment, but it was used by the female staff of the business to avoid travelling back to Mount Pleasant late at night. The café attracted holiday makers, local young people and families.
Philip and Sheila Mason. The Masons came to Hermanus in 1945 and bought a small bakery that operated where the Pick n Pay parking area is now. Shortage of flour after WWII made it impossible to get a new bakery licence and so they had to buy a working bakery. Having in this way acquired a bakery licence, they built a new bakery at 16 Flower Street and named it the Maple Leaf Bakery. S J du Toit explains how the Masons came to own The Goldfish Café: Long before potato crisps became a mass-produced item, the Masons made them at the bakery and supplied cafés and shops. At the time, Jack Carstens was running The Goldfish Cafe on Grotto Beach. One morning, Philip went to deliver The Goldfish order of 200 packets of crisps. Jack told Philip that he had been offered the position of manager of the Birkenhead Hotel, but was stuck with The Goldfish. When he offered Mason the business, Philip there and then agreed to take on the cafe… They had it for a year and Sheila loved it. It was quite wonderful to see the people enjoying the beach below the café… The Masons only ran The Goldfish for a year before selling it to Oscar Hulley. His daughter, Yvonne Hulley, was Miss South Africa in 1965. In 1969, still known as the Goldfish Café, it was bought by Johan and Valla de Bruyn who offered entertainment there, with excellent food, for some nine years. In 1978 the de Bruyns sold the business to Kit Hoffman, Valla de Bruyn’s brother. Three years later, the next owners (recorded only as “Gary and Dale”) changed the name to The Driftwood Den. Under this name it remained popular with young people. One of the succession of owners in the 1980s changed the name to Nautilus, but the building began to decline due to lack of upkeep. In 1992 the Nautilus was bought by Esther and Heinie Rosenstrauch who temporarily turned the business around. However, they sold to Brian Watt in 1994 and things deteriorated again. By the middle 1990s, the Nautilus was in a poor shape. However, Friday nights were popular, with very loud music. Teenagers, and even pre-teens, flocked there to ‘dance’, standing wedged together in a crowd. Then, in the late 1990s, the Nautilus burned down. Let’s hope a venue will be created to carry on the tradition.
In the early 1950s the business was sold to An artist’s depiction of the Nautilus on Grotto Beach.
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