No city is quite like Joburg.
Not much is going well for the City of Gold. The inner city is filthy, like it looks as though it should be nuked, and have things rebuilt from the ashes. Not only is our infrastructure failing to bits but the cultural lifeblood of this city is haemorrhaging at an alarming rate.
Cape Town has recently seen to it that the Cape Town International Jazz Festival be reinstated this year. Joburg, well we have another iconic venue to add to the graveyard of places that were crucial but no longer exist. Places like the Orbit Jazz Club come to mind, a sanctuary for jazz lovers in Braamfontein seems to have been squeezed out by the early phases of gentrification that have this area in its clutches.
Then of course was the completely puzzling closure of The Dome in Northgate. I had the distinct displeasure of driving by it not so long ago and seeing tier upon tier of cars. A place where Diana Ross performed, Nicki Minaj, Mary J. Blige, Maxwell…the list of exotic talents that were on display there is arguably unmatched and now it is a big ass car showroom.
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The newest casualty is the famed Kitchener’s Carvery Bar in Braamfontein. At one point this was one of the hottest hangouts for students and a gem in the student district of Braamfontein. Issues between the owners of this club and the landlord became untenable and the weekend before last, Kitchener’s threw one final rager before they closed the doors.
One last dance
The party ensued from Friday to Sunday. On Saturday, the Kitchen pulled its largest crowd in some time. Old heads and youngsters alike who were thankful for this place in one way, or another came out in their droves. The lineup was stacked, and the night was as boisterous as Kitchener’s in its heyday.
Andrew the DJ is the 43-year-old owner of the Kitchen and as you can imagine, seeing it close after so long is more than weighing heavily on his heart.
“I was a DJ who would never get booked so I needed to find my own place where I could play,” he says recalling how he first came to own Kitchener’s.
The issue is allegedly to do with the landlord who rumour has it, systematically forced Kitchener’s out of its home. At first, the space we all know as Kitchener’s shrunk with the second bar area and courtyard no longer available to guests of the pub. This area was sublet to someone else and looks inactive. Still, the staff and crew at the Kitchen kept pushing on and used the smaller space to their advantage.
Now that has been plucked away from them Andrew is visibly bothered when he responds with a deflated, ‘no comment’ when asked about this feud with the landlord.
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The love he has been getting does outweigh the hate and anger this closure has brought about.
“It has been absolutely overwhelming the love we have received. I could not think of a better way to go out,” the native of KZN explains.
Andrew will miss hanging out with people from a myriad of backgrounds and musical inclinations within the walls of his establishment. What we will miss is an entity that was the cornerstone of Braam being as cool as it once was. You rememeber, some 10 years ago when the hip hop clique Boyz n Bucks filmed the seminal Umswenkofontein outside Kitchener's.
Braamfontein has never been as dope as it was in this era with the area bursting to life with fashion outlets, culinary excellence and a platitude of skilled musicians using the area as a springboard for their careers like The Brother Moves On, BLK JKS, Moonchild Sanelly. Truth be told things started to take a dip after this period with independent artisans and creatives being forced out by large supermarket chains and fast food restaurants.
“When I opened, we were the only thing happening in Braam really. So, a lot of what has happened there stemmed from our early days making a splash,” Andrew intimates commenting on the many changes he has seen Braamfontein undergo over the years.
Trying to ward off landlords with a hunger for gentrification owning a space as vibrant as Kitchener’s also has a few challenges that go along with it.
“Keeping things fresh in terms of entertainment was always a challenge as well as the economics of running a small place with large overheads,” Andrew says.
Andrew aims to take a break from what has been a tiresome end to a legendary watering hole.
“I’ll be concentrating on my other bar in Linden, The Irish Club, and looking around for other opportunities.”
Despite his feelings of anguish and anger, the Kitchen will live on in our memories and hearts and what a send-off it was on the weekend this place hosted its swansong of soirees.
“The closing parties, yes, two of the best nights of my life. Everyone turned up, old faces and new and the love was real Hanging out with people from many diverse backgrounds.”
An ode to The Kitchen
This was a haven for creatives who sourced clothes and resold them, a place that birthed an entire generation of DJs who were not afforded the chance to play elsewhere, they could always do so at Kitchener’s and refine their skills in front of a live audience. An honest audience because if your set was lacking you would always be told about it. People like Moonchild Sanelly cut their teeth performing for a crowd who cut up that tatty old carpet that clings to the dance floor.
Rappers would often display their skills to Kitchener’s from impromptu cyphers outside to those brothers who want to whisper raps to you on the dance floor even while House music thumps in the background. There was hardly ever any lip-synching as was on full display at Cotton Fest this week, the setting was too intimate in Kitchener’s for an artist to get away from the hate that would see them amass as soon as they stepped off stage.
Shindigs like Pussy Party, a safe space for women to be free held quite regularly at Kitchener’s with an all-women line-up are to be no more.
We wish him the best and the landlord of the building, we pray your further ventures burn up into nothing of significance. Amen.
