Sea Point's grand old Ritz has a future that beckons

For many years, the deserted skeleton of the Ritz Hotel in Sea Point was a sitting bulk of faded dreams, but it's getting a new pulse. By Herman Lategan

- Herman Lategan

I was a young boy growing up in a modest Sea Point of the 1970s. It was a fringe foodie haven before the Waterfront's arrival, not nouvelle cuisine, refined or fancy, but honest, everyday fare that brimmed with genuine flavour.

Although the mood and grub were multiethnic, more so than the Boerewors Curtain, it was as we called it, kômmin cosmopolitan. Toasted cheese-and-tomato sandwiches and Five Roses Tea were de rigueur at the drive-in restaurant at the Doll House. Also, pink or green milkshakes and hamburgers, with slap tjips and the foghorn as background music.

Then there was the pavilion, the beaches, hotels and movie houses. It was the height of apartheid, and black people couldn't even rest on the benches along the seafront or dip their toes in the pavilion's waters. My recollections of carefree walks and sunny days are white memories, shaped by a divided past I now strive to understand and be mindful of.

No movies on Sundays. To get around that, the movie houses would screen a movie at one minute past midnight on a Sunday. I'm not kidding, the Dutch Reformed Church and apartheid prime minister John Vorster with his red nose were large and in charge.

No alcohol on Sundays, except if you ordered food from one of the hotels. A carvery with oversalted gravy and depressed grandparents starring into their semisweet Bellingham Johannesberger. Supermarkets closed at 1pm on Saturdays.

Cars still looked like cars. People drove Ford Cortinas, Datsun 1600 SSSS, VW Beetles, Chevrolets and Valiants. Sculptures on wheels. Television had not yet arrived in South Africa — it was Springbok Radio or Radio Good Hope. Locally we listened to singers Four Jacks and a Jill, Clout and Miriam Makeba, but on vinyl.