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Going to the opening of a new-look grocery store in Knysna was rather like attending an important social occasion as people from all walks of life literally descended on it the day it opened — after being closed for a week for the revamp.
It wasn’t just Knysna people either who jostled for parking and armed themselves with shopping trolleys, but also folk from Plettenberg Bay and Sedgefield.
We don’t ordinarily write about grocery stores because they need to pay for advertising and supplements so that poor journalists can be paid a stipend from this revenue, but the opening last week of Food Lover’s Market Knysna was a happening significant enough that it warrants a story.
My hairdresser was there ... friends and so many people I know that it was a bit like a happy hour special at one of our watering holes.
In between eyeing special offers, folk were chatting, catching up.
The editor of Sedgefield’s Edge Community Newspaper, Bomber Webb, was there.
He can be found at important Knysna gatherings, so let’s say his presence is already a good barometer of just how significant this occasion was for the greater Garden Route area.
Some of the thousands of people who flocked to the opening came because of curiosity, for the FOMO (fear of missing out) factor and needing to be seen, but also because everybody, even well-off characters I saw, wants a bargain in this day and age.
Many people also came to do some serious shopping in time for the Easter weekend in true SA fashion ... loading up on meat and all the trimmings for that braai and the generous eating many of us still do.
The old store was closed for a week for the transition and the opening (April 16) was advertised on social media.
If you have a phone and Facebook, you could not possibly have missed the hype.
There were hundreds of posts from loyal Garden Route shoppers, and I don’t think saying news of the event going viral is an exaggeration.
I went just to be the observer and not the shopper.
At the best of times, I avoid shops and when I am forced into one of them because of empty cat-food bags, I have a list and I don’t deviate from it.
My partner, on the other hand, browses for specials which he invariably finds by shopping around for the best prices.
He is also one of those shoppers who check the expiry date on food items, which is why only I come home with dead lettuce.
He simply could not come away from this new shop without something.
When I ask him what he is going to do with the two coconuts he got for a whole R25, he doesn’t sound sure, but they were a bargain.
Watching people fill trolleys to the brim with fresh food, specials of the day, but also perishables like litres and litres of milk, reminds me of Black Friday in Knysna about 10 years ago.
I remember standing at the top of the elevator coming up from Game (Knysna Mall) watching people stuff shopping carts with discounted everything from toilet paper to TVs.
As prices of food and just about everything have increased, this Black Friday phenomenon has dwindled to nothing special the last few years, hardly an event worth mentioning.
A sense of déjà vu overcomes me and for a moment I have a wobbly because it feels like the start of the Covid-19-pandemic lockdown again when we all shopped like the world was ending and along with it the death of toilet paper, pasta and perishables.
Store co-owner Herman Kapp tells me the plans for this grand store have been in the pipeline for six years.
The store is now more than 2½ times bigger than it was.
It’s a huge, 4,000m² filled with a bewildering variety of food.
The parking section has also been extended to double what it was.
Apparently, dozens of extra staff were on duty just for this big day.
Kapp tells me the butchery has been revamped, the bakery extended, there is a fresh fish section, there is a hot food takeaway, there is a sushi-bar area, there are pies, there is a salad bar.
At the entrance is a popular coffee franchise.
As a one-stop shop the old store fell short of a variety of the boring things like washing powder and toiletries we all need to buy, but Kapp tells me this issue has been addressed so that all shopping from fresh fruit to tinfoil can now happen here.
A big chunk of my adulthood was spent in Hong Kong and then I more recently lived in Istanbul, where shopping for fresh groceries happens at markets, many al fresco.
The beauty of this new store are the aisles of veg where you get to fondle the tomatoes you buy and poke the avocados to see how ripe they are.
It’s a tactile, almost tantric experience for me.
And the selection of veg, particularly tomatoes and even brinjals, is staggering.
Quite beautiful actually! It’s the only place in Knysna where I have seen heirloom tomatoes in all their glory.
A week since the opening the fanfare is still going strong.
During the Easter weekend we pop in for something and it’s still buzzing, the queues are long, the excitement still tangible.
I went for a walk along the estuary past the location and saw somebody on a bicycle with two of this shop’s signature paper bags hanging off the handle bars.
The Herald
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