Here with a Wednesday post to prepare you for some heavy mall traffic ahead! What’s a Joburg shopper's favourite dance on Black Friday? The checkers shuffle! 🛍️

In today’s Melville Untold,

• A Melvillian’s guide to Black Friday

• The Melville Market Blessed By A Looming Birth

• Community Clean-up Week is here!

Let’s go. 

— Aubrey Moloto 

The Digest

A Melvillians Guide To Black Friday!

A brief history

Let’s begin with an obscure historical fact of which one can’t be sure, but surely feels smart when they write in an article - Black Friday’s origins stem from a very naughty Jay Gould when he and his accomplice Jim Fisk caused a gold market crash in 1869. Jim and Jay greedily, I guess also ambitiously tried to corner the gold market (this is one of my favourite stories in American history!). This gold corner on a young Wall Street led to widespread bankruptcies, investors dubbed it Black Friday. The name was later used by the Philly police in the 50s to talk about the chaos from post-thanksgiving shoppers. It was initially hated by retailers but the name grew on them by the 1980’s using it to describe when they had turned a profit, going from being in the red to the black. Today, Black Friday marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season and has become a multi-day event with tons of online sales. This year Black Friday falls on November the 29th. 

Black Friday In South Africa

Over the past few years that we have partaken in it here in Mzansi, I sense South Africans either hate or love it. It’s become a time of running jokes about traffic around our malls, voting queue-like lines at tills, mall stampedes and general greed-fuelled f*ckery. With the state of our economy, I see why people turn into consumer werewolves on Thursday at midnight.  Some scour e-commerce websites bookmarking relentlessly while others draw crop circles on newspapers furiously highlighting and underlining specials like they were preparing for a final. I can’t even blame inflation anymore. It’s a culmination of situations that the administration’s mismanagement has subjected us to, the modern monetary system’s failings, corruption leading us to junk status downgrades brutally followed by a round-house kick from Covid, joblessness, one/non-income households, overpopulation, salaries not rising when prices do, prices not dropping when inflation does and many more reasons. I’m no macro-economic expert but when people get crazy-eyes during Black Friday, I see it. I really do and I try not to judge. I’m just one little Melvillain, enjoying his popcorn, with a front-row seat of the “Black Friday madness”. So yeah, I guess I see both sides of the Madiba R5 coin. 

Our research results

Rant complete. Today we’d like to ease you into the Black Friday spirit before social media and choc-a-block traffic yanks you into it. We hit up as many Melville businesses as possible to get you a local Black Friday cheat sheet. Turns out that most Melville people don't care to hop on this trend too much. We weren’t surprised because we’re trendsetters and live in our own world! With one business owner actually saying "We'll always avoid Black Friday by all means". We did get a few businesses though who will have some offers for you. We also know that there are many amazing year-round specials in Melville so it's really “Black every day” here! (A quote from Ebs, SIX Cocktails owner and long-term Melville resident). So we also give you a curated list of some of the best year-round deals in Mellies. 

Starting with Black Friday offerings from Melville businesses:

• Cuppa Café offers a free filter coffee with every R70 spent, and R80 for cappuccinos. For kids, they have a portion of pancakes when you buy 2 of their yummy milkshakes!

• Reserved Café offers R20 cappuccinos and you get a free Pastéls de Nata (reply to this email if you know what that is). You can also get any prego roll and chips meal for R50!

• Hotel Hope Interiors and Resurrection will have “great discounts,” they calling it ‘Golden Weekend’!

• Staying with 27Boxes, the good people at 27Boxes Premium Car Wash offer a wash for R80 with a free air freshener from the 25th of November until the 1st of December. 

• At Kribo Trading, Pilates Melville offers a 50% discount on a one-year gym membership!

• Our friends at Smoking Kills will have a half-price cocktail special from 3 - 9 pm on Black Friday. 

• Budbox offers a Greenhouse pre-roll with every 150 loyalty points spent and an entry into their Playstation 5 giveaway draw!

That’s the Black Friday deals on offer, many businesses did say that they were still working on their Black Friday catalogues and prices. We’ll post them on our Instagram stories leading up to the day and all throughout the week as they come through so make sure to follow us on our social media. They’ll automatically post to our Facebook too so fear not if you don’t do Insta!

Here are some of our favourite year-round deals:

• Definitely Picobella Trattoria's half-price pasta on Mondays and Pizzas on Wednesdays. They also have a happy hour cocktail special from 3 - 4 pm on Fridays.

• SIX Cocktails has a 2-for-1 cocktails special every day from 11-7 pm. 

• Al-falah and Bismillah Indian cuisine restaurants on Main Road always come in clutch on a Friday with their huge Biriyani portions for R40 until 4 pm. 

• Jo’anna Meltbar have the most yummy half-price gourmet toastie meals on Wednesdays, half-price tequila on Tuesdays and Jäger on Thursdays.

• Liquid Blue has a crazy 6 liquid cocaine shots for R60 any time they’re open.

• Smoking Kills Bar has a 50% rum & coke special from 2 - 4 pm every Saturday.

• Harissa Grill and Shisa Bar offers a R60 Hubbly special on Thursdays from 3 pm until closing. R100 cocktail jug from 6-8 pm Monday to Thursday.

These are our picks for the best specials in Melville. Please reply to this email if you know something we don’t, or if we have missed a gem! We’ll be sure to check in with some money-savvy posts to help you get some bang for your buck in our hood. 

Conclusion

While working on these last few articles, we met amazing people who love and care for Melville. We’re noticing that the general consensus favours day trade and more family-friendly fun. The balance seems to have tipped a little to the party and nightlife vibe. We’d really like to prioritise non-intoxicating offerings and day trade. If we get enough responses with these types of things we’ll publish a day-trade-centric issue of Melville Untold. Let us know what you think, reply, reply, reply! Let’s talk. :)

If you enjoyed this week’s Black Friday special consider buying us a coffee.

What’s Happenin’ 🤔

There’s plenty of clean fun to get into this week (mind the pun!) our pick-of-the-week is the community clean-up happening this Saturday. Check the Civil Matters section for details.

Melville Weather For The Week ☔️ 

The skies are giving us a brief sunny break before the next rainfall at the end of the week. ☀️

This Week's Forecast:

Wednesday 

30° 🌡️ 16°  | 🌤️ |  🌧️ 1% | N 11 km/h 💨

Thursday  

30° 🌡️ 16° | ⛅️ | 🌧️ 1% | NW 7 km/h 💨

Friday 

28° 🌡️ 15° | ☁️ |  🌧️ 40% | NW 9 km/h 💨

Saturday 

27° 🌡️ 13° | 🌤️ |  🌧️ 56% | NNW 7 km/h 💨

Sunday

26° 🌡️ 13° |  🌤️ |  🌧️ 40% | N 4 km/h 💨

Monday 

28° 🌡️ 14° | ⛅️ |  🌧️ 56% | NNW 9 km/h 💨

Tuesday

26° 🌡️ 13.° | 🌤️ |  🌧️ 58% | N 17 km/h 💨

Don't forget your umbrella! ☔

Live & Music Events Lowdown 🎸

Smoking Kills is back with some rocking live music events! They have international bands gracing their stage coming all the way from the UK and Netherlands. Besides SK we have all the usual weekly music events, here’s a full list.

19/11 Tuesdays | 7 pm - 10 pm | Coca Lounge | Artist open showcase/performance | Free entry

20/11 Wednesdays | 7 pm | SIX Cocktails Bar | Live Jazz Sessions - Peter Auret, Muhammad Dawjee, Amaeshi Ikechi, David Cousins | 8 pm til late | Free entrance 

20/11 Wednesdays | Blanco On 7th | Culture On 7th - Slam Poetry, Live Music, Comedy | Free entrance 

20/11 Wednesday | Smoking Kills Bar | Nuklear Circus: Betty’s Nuklear & Hardwicke Circus 🇬🇧 | Tickets R80

21/11 Thursdays | 7 pm - 10 pm | Coca Lounge | Open Mic - Plug in, play, sing and rap | Free entry

22/11 Friday | 7 pm - 12 am | Smoking Kills Bar | Mosh - Twenty-one Children, Posterboy, lefokolodi, Proper 🇳🇱 | Tickets from R80, R120 at the door

23/11 Sundays | 5 pm til late | White Campus Square | Saturday Night Live - Live Music | Every Saturday | Free entry, no demands

24/11 Sunday | 1 pm - 4 pm | Karaoke Kong | Folk Fest - Lakesides & Lanterns Indie-folk performances | Tickets R50 

24/11 Sunday| 4 pm | Jo’anna Meltbar | Sola Vida Drum & Bass | 1/2 price cocktails | Free entry all day

24/11 Sunday| 8 pm - 10 pm | Coca Lounge | Live Music With Rick Leoh | Every Sunday

26/11 Tuesdays | 7 pm - 10 pm | Xai Xai Lounge | Eric Miyeni & Richard Jones playing live music | Free entry

If this comprehensive weather and gig guide helped you, consider buying us a coffee.

For more updates as the week goes on, visit our instagram page @snapson7th

Melville Koppies Check-in ⛰️

This week at Melville Koppies Central.

Monthly 8km Trail:

• Meeting Point: Marks Park parking lot

• Start Time: 8:30 AM sharp

• Duration: 3 hours

Alternative Activities:

• Free roaming

• Bird-watching

• Photography

• Meditation sessions

Pricing:

• Adults: R90

• Children: R50

Gates open 8:30 AM - close 11:30 AM

Civil Matters 👷‍♀️

Last week was a tough one for our community in terms of civil issues. We had power outages left right and centre, water problems and issues with Mzansi’s forgotten citizens as well here’s the 411 so you can prepare to navigate through this week.

🧹 Community Cleanup Update

• Meet point is at the parking lot behind the Mays Chemist

• Residents should start arriving at 9 am to pick a task, get protective equipment and assigned a location

• They’ll be a list and table to orientate everyone

• A point for picking up your tokens for refreshments provided by Smoking Kills, Coca Lounge and Picobella’s will be provided there too

🚰 Water Situation Update Our beloved Melville is experiencing significant water supply issues following planned maintenance at Eikenhof Pump Station on November 17th. The situation's been complicated by technical problems at Zuikerbosch Treatment Works and high temperatures affecting our systems. The main areas impacted include parts supplied by Hursthill Reservoirs 1 and 2, affecting water pressure throughout Melville.

Johannesburg Water is working to stabilize the system, but recovery is slower than we'd like. They've promised alternative water supply arrangements, though deployment has been sluggish (we're watching this closely!). If you're experiencing outages, keep an eye on our social media for updates about water tanker locations.

Pro tip: When water returns, pressure might be low at first - this is normal as the system recovers. Keep some bottles filled when you can!

🔊  Noise Control Initiative On a different note (pun intended!), our neighborhood's famous nightlife is causing some headaches - literally. The Melville Residents' Association (MRA) is taking action regarding noise complaints from some of our newer establishments. They're meeting with JMPD, Environmental Health, and Town Planning to address these concerns.

If you've been affected by noise issues and have previously filed complaints with JMPD, the MRA is collecting these records to build a stronger case for enforcement. They're requesting residents to share their official complaint details (with reference numbers) at [email protected]. The goal isn't to shut down our vibrant nightlife but to find that sweet spot between entertainment and peaceful living - something Melville has always managed to balance beautifully.

As always, we're committed to keeping you updated on both situations. Remember, Melville thrives when we all work together! 💪

Markets Watch 🎪

The new Melville Market at Kruis is thriving! 🌟

Weekend Highlights:

• Record turnout

• Multiple sold-out stalls

• The special guest: A Dikkop mommy bird chose the market for her new home!

Nature's Blessing: Our feathered friend laid two eggs right in the market square last Saturday. The market team placed protective cones around her nest to alert drivers and pedestrians and make this was the first birth at the market. This feels like a proper blessing!

The community has amazingly now fully taken her in. Everyone is checking up, feeding and ensuring her safety. Paul Mills is doing a regular daily check up and updating the I Love Melville group on Facebook. We’re all looking forward to see the babies arrive in the world safely! What a Melville moment!

Join them this weekend:

• Date: Saturday

• Time: 9:30 AM - 2 PM

• Venue: Kruisgemeente Church

• Special Feature: "Mama Bird" watch! 🐦

Icing On The Cake  🧁

Sweet Little Stories From Our Hood

Grab your diaries because we've got some proper treats that'll make you forget about those Black Friday queues!

The Elves and the Shoemaker Pantomime

First up, our creative neighbours are cooking up something magical at the Roosevelt Park Recreation Centre. "The Elves and the Shoemaker" is bringing together the finest theatrical talent from Melville, Westdene, and Auckland Park (talk about a neighbourhood collab!).

It's running from November 22nd to 30th, with evening shows at 7 PM and Saturday at 1 PM for those who prefer their theatre with a side of afternoon sunshine.

Here's the best part – you don't need to be Meryl Streep to get involved in future productions. The Franklin Players Theatre crew welcomes everyone with open arms, experience optional, enthusiasm mandatory!

Colour My City Fun Run

Hold onto your white T-shirts, because "Colour My City" is making its rainbow-powered comeback on December 7th! If you've never experienced this explosion of joy at 27 Boxes, just imagine a 3km walk where you start looking pristine and end up looking like you've been hugged by a rainbow. We've covered this event before (literally – we still find colour powder in our camera gear!), and it's exactly the kind of wholesome chaos we live for in Melville.

This isn't just any old fun run – it's a proper family jam where parents are encouraged to put down their phones (gasp!) and get colourfully crazy with their kids. There'll be "Colour Zones" along the route where you'll get playfully powdered, and afterwards, Reserved Café and Bambanani will be serving up treats for those post-walk munchies. Plus, there's a market with photo booths to capture your technicolour transformation.

The beautiful minds behind this vibrant venture, Obakeng Sikwane and team, are making sure it's more than just a pretty powder party – it's about bringing families together and supporting local charities. You can sign up online or pop by Lifestyle Hub at Shop 24, 27 Boxes if you're old school like that.

Quick Details

The Elves and the Shoemaker

• Where: Roosevelt Park Recreation Centre

• When: Nov 22-30 (7 PM shows, plus 1 PM Saturday matinees)

• What: Local theatrical shenanigans with shoes, elves, and plenty of laughs

• Tickets via Quicket

Colour My City

• Where: 27 Boxes, Melville

• When: December 7th, 2024

• What: 3km of colourful chaos (in the best way possible!)

• Register: Free on Quicket or at Lifestyle Hub, Shop 24, 27 Boxes

Thank you! 🙏

Thanks for tuning into this week's Melville Untold! Forward this email to a friend obsessed with Melville…or Black Friday. Reply if you have the killer scoop for next week's issue! 📧

The end of the year is here, you can help us keep the lights on by booking our photography or video services for your office year-end events. 📸 

If you have an amazing service or product that Melville needs to know about, consider buying one of our sponsorship packages, and we'll help you get the word out in our awesome newsletter!

Contact us at 0605293425 and 0818262904 on Whatsapp or simply reply to this email.

Til next week.

Keep shopping local, keep sharing and keep the Melville community caring!

Awe! ✌️