People enjoying a beer moment at Tapas pub in Ntinda. Photo | Tony Mushoborozi
It is vastly easier to be blown away by a restaurant in Uganda than it is to be blown away by a pub. It could be the aesthetics of the set up or the service or the food. For example, do you remember the first time you entered Café Javas?
Remember how impressed you were by the unique furniture, the gorgeous hostess who welcomed you at the entrance, the exquisite wall deco comprised of rare plates and antic artefacts? It just felt solid. Try and recall a time when a bar made such an impression on you.
Local pubs always seem like they were set up as a temporary scheme to make quick money. The paintwork may look great, but when you look in the corner behind the large speaker, the wall is powdering or flaking.
Ugandan pub waitresses tend to appear like mere bottle delivery robots, often moody. The furniture may look dope, but you can tell it will soon fall apart like a cheap suitcase. Local pubs to be pretend-fancy, never fancy.
And somehow, we have normalised this because Ugandan bars barely ever last more than five years. Perhaps pub owners always have this in mind as they invest. Who knows? Or maybe, the reason our pubs never last long is because they are so cheap and rickety.
Enter Tapas
So you can imagine the shock that accosted me when I recently chanced upon a pub that blew my mind in more ways than one. Tapas is a pub to watch, if only to emulate it, for those investing in the industry. First off, the confidence in that name. No qualifiers, no explanations. Just Tapas. You know, like Abraham or Moses.
The attention to detail is jaw-dropping. The ornate entrance alone communicates to you that you are entering a pub that means business.
The super high ceiling, the whirling sound of the giant fans overhead, the immaculate off-white paint on the walls that matches with the furniture, the solidness of the wooden bar top, the engraved wooden branding on the back wall, the framed art on the walls, the lantern-like chandeliers and the clever lighting. It is a small bar compared to many, but it feels spacious because of how well organised it is.
The crowd
It’s is the kind of place you take your long lost buddy to impress them, to let them know you are not doing too badly; that you are a man of taste. It’s the kind of place where you bring your woman to reignite your love or when you want to apologise for the big annoying thing you did to her last Saturday. And chances are, she will forgive you. Because there are good vibes here. But she better dress up real nice or she may get back home feeling inadequate. Why?
The people that frequent this Minister’s Village bar are polished. Young, confident and stylish. The girls, particularly, are on the hotter side of the spectrum. The men somehow look like they have been enjoying financial freedom for years, eating a balanced diet and hitting the gym. Which is not surprising because Tapas is the kind of place that attracts such a crowd.
Tapas gets you wondering which kind of human set it up. A hospitality expert? Maybe. A well-travelled and well-read professional? And expatriate? Most likely. Whoever it is, he sure got some magical hands, forget about some run-of-the-mill businessman, trying to make a quick buck.
Service
You know how waitresses in most pubs tend to be moody and rude? Somehow bar service in Uganda tends to come without a smile. She shows up at your table, takes your order, goes and returns with your drinks, opens them and disappears. That is not how waiting tables should be, we all know this, but we accept it in pubs.
Not at Tapas. Here, waitresses smile as they take your order and smile as they hand you your Nile Special. They keep checking to see if you need anything else, while being courteous and professional. It can only mean one thing; regular training.
Clearly these people are well-trained by an actual hospitality professional, or they are very well taken care of, or both.
It does not come as a surprise when you later learn that Tapas hires waitresses with restaurant experience. But then again, you remember that Tapas is a restaurant by day and a pub by night. It is ran by true professionals with deep experience in hospitality.
Out of curiosity, I decided to order for food and find out if it marched the service. I made my order at 5:37 and by 5:47, my steak rolls and potato chips were brought. Excellent food. This is no ordinary place.
Your beer arrives with two black serviettes, not some ordinary white napkins that anyone can get their hands on at the corner shop. The one is for your bottle, the other is for your pre-chilled beer mug. It is the small things, see.
Popular
A week before the Saturday I visited, I had to book to be there because Tapas has a few of such days, when you are required to book your place there. That is how popular this bar has become in the 10 months it has been operational.
Requiring patrons to book is what you do when you keep getting overwhelming numbers. And that was the case on the day that I visited. The place was full and the music was great. But the soundproofing is so good that you can barely hear anything from outside.
I am not trying to be a reverse racist, but when you find a place that runs this well in this country, the first thing you imagine is, ‘it must be owned by a white man and ran by an Indian’. Yeah, I said it.
But Tapas is neither. It is owned by a Ugandan and run by Ugandans. We, too, are capable of building something excellent and running it very efficiently. Let us get to it.
