As Tom Waits sang it in Eggs and Sausage “there’s a rendezvous of strangers around the coffee urn tonight.” But this is no Edward Hopper painting but rather Moments, the hip and happening black and red coffee shop inside Malmesbury Spar in Voortrekker Road.

Moments in Malmesbury

This is a defining social moment for the West Coast town as with Barry’s Beef and Barrel (bizarrely the best fish restaurant in the Western Cape) closed for weekend lunches, Riebeek Kasteel offered the only Saturday lunch worth considering and that involved a 25 Km trip with clod-hopper size carbon footprints. But Kasteel is a culinary war zone: the War of the Wall is still simmering between Bar Bar Black Sheep and Anti Pasti Deli (two adjacent restaurants have been rudely separated by a wall) and sensitive souls now make the trek to Moments in Malmesbury for parma ham and avocado tramezzini and some peace and quiet.

The arrival of Moments comes as no surprises to retail analysts as supermarket mitosis is widespread. After growing ever larger and cavernous, supermarkets are now spawning smaller shops between the aisles. Woolies in Melrose Arch has given birth to a Tapas Bar and informed rumour has it that three Western Cape Woolworths branches will spawn glassed in liquor stores, offering whisky and imported spirits galore, before the end of March.

Transforming Woolies into a one stop shopping destination, covering consumer essentials from Amarula and air-freshener to Zambuka. These glass stores within stores are a huge challenge for specialist liquor retailers like Norman Goodfellows. Which could explain why retailer to the plutocrats Carrie Adams is concentrating her unflagging energies on the Classic FM Wine Club. A good move, until supermarkets unveil in-store radio stations.

The reason behind supermarkets moving into spirits is to be found in the reluctance/incompetence/corruption of some provinces in issuing grocer’s wine licenses plus the run-away success of Tops at Spar liquor stores. Monkey see, monkey do, as they say in business school.

Approached for comment, Woolies wine whizz Jabulani Facude responded “we have being investigating the concept [of in-store liquor stores] for the last three years and we are not in a position to make any announcement as yet.” Which some might interpret as “yes.” Meanwhile Moments will do its best to undermine Kate Moss and her ridiculous anti-restaurant crusade “nothing tastes as good as thin feels.”

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