All Roads Lead to … Market Café

For ages, my mother and I made bets about what was being built in Maerua Mall across from Fashion Express, under the escalators. At first I was convinced they were adding bathrooms, but as construction shaped up, it became clear that Windhoek would soon have a new café.

A welcome addition to the mall, Fruit and Veg City/Food Lover’s Market brought a deck café complete with a sushi bar and a take-away counter to boot. I quickly learned that their Chilla chocolate frappes make me happy. I also learned that the service definitely doesn’t. Having visited the counter a few times – and having dealt with frustrating staff who either don’t notice you standing there or take forever to make a cold beverage – I knew I had to sit down in the café at some point.

On a Friday afternoon, I did just that. Ordering chicken mayo tramezzinis (N$52) to go with my chocolate frappe (N$28), I learned that life on the other side of the take-away counter is quite nice. The service is decent and the food’s good. The tramezzinis are a little heavy on the onions, but I like that.

The thing is though, in the restaurant world, consistency is a big deal. Not only are you expected to have great food and great service, you’re expected to have great food and great service all the time. This is where Market Cafe lets us down. The food can be good, but many people may not have the chance to experience that if the service, especially at the front counter, isn’t up to par and they end up walking away before ordering anything.

The café isn’t the biggest of spaces either, which makes manoeuvring to and from the sushi bar and in between tables tricky when the café’s full. One or two fewer tables may not do them any favours revenue-wise, but will definitely ease up the flow of movement in the café.

Also something that is very hard to miss is an unpainted wall to the side of the café, which is quite the eyesore, given how cute the décor of the rest of the café is. So much of an eyesore it completely slipped my mind to try the sushi.

But a little more than a week later, I was back.

I’ll admit, I’m always little scared to try sushi at a new place. Not only because we live a good four hours from the ocean, but because sushi is raw fish and raw fish can mean business… Bad business. Thankfully I didn’t have to worry – the sushi at Market Café is good.

Priced according to plate colour, it varies from N$30 to N$55, which isn’t bad. A plate only consists of four pieces of sushi though, so if you’re looking to binge, you might do well to order a platter instead, which range from N$60 to N$130.

Easily the most disconcerting thing about Market Café is the fact that their food pick up window is right in a corridor where many, many people traipse along every day, breathing their germs all over your food. This and the service notwithstanding, it’s a nice spot. All it needs is a little love.

Market Café is open from 07h00 to 18h30 Mondays to Fridays, 07h00 to 14h00 on Saturdays and 09h00 to 14h00 on Sundays.

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