21/10/2022
The African Way was founded three years ago by a group of students in their final year of their undergraduate degrees at the University of Cape Town. The African Way was a business that was designed to solve many problems that we all saw in South Africa at that time.
The first and most important was the lack of community spaces. We felt that the role that the tavern had once played, as a space for everyone to mingle and to discuss ideas (particularly political ideas), was no longer present in South Africa at that time. Not having spaces like this meant that it was difficult for the political movements of the time to have cohesion and to draw people of different classes and backgrounds together. The African Way was designed, in part, to be this space. To this end, we have spent a lot of time hosting community events that have drawn workers from the area, community activists, students, and more. We are proud of the discussions and the achievements that have been born from events hosted at The African Way.
The second was a lack of education about The Struggle. The South African education system has chosen to diminish the role of the Struggle. When we grew up, the Struggle was not even a required study subject in History in high school – it was part of the syllabus only after History became optional. Even when it is taught, the level of detail is low and does not give sufficient attention for events that have shaped our everyday lives. The African Way is adorned with artefacts and photos from the Struggle that have been painstakingly captioned. These give a more genuine insight into lives under the struggle by highlighting some lesser-known events (which happened by the thousands across South Africa at the height of the UDF’s power). At events, we also did our outmost to emphasise Struggle values and why they remained important in the democratic era.
The third was xenophobia. South African xenophobia is a result of ignorance and stupidity driven by a lack of education about The Struggle and the role the rest of the continent played in liberation. The African Way ensured that it always portrayed itself as an African coffee shop, in which all Africans would always be welcome. We decorated our space with every African flag and even took our name from a quote by Thomas Sankara (who, for those of you in the know, also is our all-important wifi password). We have also hosted and attended events focused on ending xenophobia. We have consistently emphasised how other African governments stood up to the Apartheid government and hosted and supported the struggle movements in exile. This support was dangerous and had a very real and negative effect on the countries that gave it, but they did it anyway – to support the idea of South African liberation. We owe the rest of the African continent for that.
The fourth was the lack of domestic appreciation of coffee. The best coffee in the world is made on the African continent, but the demand for African coffee is overwhelmingly international. African coffee is considered a speciality product in these markets and is, therefore, extremely vulnerable to market shocks. It is in the interest of African countries to nurture demand for African coffee within their own markets. Historically, this demand is far more stable and resilient to shocks in the market. Throughout its tenure, The African Way has sold only African coffee and has encouraged its customers to do the same (both at coffee shops and at home). Coffee is a huge part of the export market of many African countries, and it is extremely important to support this industry and keep it alive whenever international demand lulls.
The fifth and last, was the underutilisation of the Cooperative model in South Africa. The Co-Op model has been used extremely effectively throughout the African continent, but examples in South Africa (at the time) were extremely scarce. Co-Ops also were typically focused on agricultural good generation, so implementing it at the point where the selling of finished goods was happening was a novel idea. We wanted to use the Co-Op model to create a true community coffee shop; one in which the community actually owns the coffee shop and benefits directly from its success. We felt that, at scale, these Co-Op coffee shops could provide income for thousands of unemployed people in communities – even someone who only had time to do one hour of cleaning at these coffee shops would be a co-owner of the shop and have a say in how it is run and would receive a profit share proportional to the effort they had put in that month.
The African Way has evolved significantly throughout its existence. In the early days, we were completely owner-run. Though we would never claim to know everything there is to know about coffee, we certainly learned enough in our early days to make a seriously good cup. Unfortunately, this situation could only work for as long as university was closed. Once university was open, we needed to be at university to attend all of our lectures (perhaps in a post-COVID world, we never would have had to stop). However, this led us to hire the extremely talented Sikhosonke Gqiba, whose skill with both coffee machines and people brought us most of our recurring customers. Sikho’s contributions made him quickly rise to become a co-owner of the business who has contributed huge amounts of his time and energy into keeping The African Way alive.
Over time, we believe that The African Way became a fixture in Observatory. We are proud of the diverse clientele that we served at this time and the impact that we had on the community. We look back with pride on our achievements, particularly in terms of the problems we had set out to combat. Unfortunately, as with so many other businesses, COVID-19 crippled our revenue stream. Though we were ultimately able to re-open, The African Way slowly transitioned into a coffee shop focused primarily on our offices (where all the current management works, on another business). The realities of this new focus meant the implementation of certain compromises. Security concerns meant that our door had to stay locked and people had to knock to be let in, and our playlist – the key element bringing our design and coffee together – had to be turned off for the benefit of the offices.
Throughout this period, The African Way was subsidised by our other businesses. Though we have had several successes over this period, even with this hybrid model, it is with a heavy heart that we must announce that we have made the decision to close The African Way. The offices in which we work are expanding, and can no longer afford to use the space to host our coffee shop.
For the group of students who started The African Way as their first foray into the business world, the weeks since making this decision have been ones of reflection. We are very proud of what we managed to achieve and the networks we managed to build. Several of us have moved into other businesses, and the lessons learned running The African Way will continue to live on in us and empower us to make better and wiser decisions as our own journeys continue.
The Founders and Owners of The African Way continue to uphold many of the principles that made it so special. We will leave you the greatest parting gift that we can: our famous African Way playlist. Like The African Way itself, this playlist embodies the spirit of Africa and the feeling of doing great things – and it’s a little bit messy. We hope you enjoy it!
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6J211tt9cZWMjOsY0KDVLp
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/za/playlist/the-african-way/pl.u-jV89b1kTd6A1vYJ
We hope to meet each one of you again, in a different context, in the future. Thank you for making this journey so special.
🧡 The African Way Management
