There are signs that the cost of living is biting people everyone on the Garden Route and in Knysna — and this is meaningful because this part of the country is known to be home to wealthy people — and here I refer to those who live in multimillion-rand homes right on the water or at least with views of the Heads.
How I know this, is because I keep bumping into them.
See I need the discounts because being a journalist is an ascetic profession, but I keep on being surprised lately by people I know who are retired and wealthy by my standards also cashing in.
Let’s take the rotisserie chicken special at Woolies in Knysna just for starters.
On a Sunday they advertise that you can get two free-range roast chickens for R140 — that’s a saving of about R60 and those birds are really especially delicious.
So last weekend I went before 10am and they were sold out, but the “chicken-man” (the guy behind the counter loading and unloading chicks into the oven) said come back in an hour-and-a-half and the next batch will be ready.
I could see the new ones turning and going golden in the oven, so it looked promising.
We for were going for a beach-walk so I figured I would stop on the way — and I even put a cooler box in the car.
Less than two hours later they were sold out again — only evidence of them was in other people’s trolleys.
The “chicken-man” (poor guy, it’s not his fault actually) said again come back in an hour-and-a-half.
By now I was determined to get a bloody chicken not only because I had set my heart on one, but also it had become a challenge.
Blow me down if the third time round the chickens were all gone again.
I can’t pretend I was friendly to chicken-man.
In fact, maybe I scared him because he told me nervously one of the ovens was broken.
Again, I sourly noticed lots of chickens in other people’s trolleys.
Moral of this story is locals flock to Woolies to get their Sunday chicken and discount — lots of them, those who can afford the full price and some salmon while they are there — and then the rest of us.
The chicken story got me thinking: I have never been a fan of Food Lover’s Market, for no reason other than I am in a rut at Pick n Pay with my shopper’s card and I know which aisles to go to without dithering.
This week, I decided to check out Food Lover’s Market, curious about their R10 Tuesday advert.
Blow me down if the car park wasn’t like something out of a Black Friday nightmare.
But hell-bent again, I eventually fought my way into a parking space — grabbed a trolley and joined some kind of bonanza shopping frenzy.
True, 500g of diced butternut (or pumpkin if you prefer) was R10 as was a packet of green beans and carrots — and even a healthy-looking broccoli was R10.
A lot of people I know, and some I just recognise, were there, stocking up on vegetables.
Oh, and I must mention their chicken (it’s not roasted, but it does say it wasn’t raised on antibiotics) was less than R40 a kilogram and there was stock!
Unloading my R10 veg specials at home, I see soup for the foreseeable future — and maybe even fodder for the compost bin if I can’t think of 101 ways to cook cauliflower.
Then there is a WhatsApp group called Daily Delights that advertises its daily restaurant group specials at 34 South, Drydock, Tapas and Sirocco.
On Fridays, we often go for half-price sushi at Drydock — and quite frankly at half-price it’s easy to binge on sashimi and lots of tempura prawns complemented with the Full Monty of sushi.
We nearly always see people we know doing the same.
But the real clincher is the Saturday Seafood Platter for two at Drydock for R195 or the 15 generous-sized prawns for a crazy R99!
And both of these offerings come with a complimentary drink.
Last Saturday, we went in a big group which included most of our closer friends in Knysna — and it was like going to church.
Just about every table had someone I knew also making hay while the sun shone.
Seems the days of hunting value-for-money on groceries, restaurants have come to the Garden Route.
And lots of vegetable soup for me if I keep popping into R10 Tuesday!
HeraldLIVE
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