Ntinda’s oldest cross-generational bar and restaurant

In 2003, Gaetano Jjuko Kagwa joined the Big Brother House at Sasani Studios in Lyndhurst, Johannesburg. 
Amidst a house garishly furnished, Gae, as he is affectionately known, raised Uganda’s visibility by dropping his pants. 
Beyond this, Gae was endlessly entertaining. Or as one Ugandan comedian put it: Gae is not funny, but he is so interesting. 

He is a winner, too. 
While in the house, Gae won the chance to swap places with Big Brother UK contestant Cameron Stout after he won a cocktail making challenge. 
As he was set out to travel to the UK Big Brother House, the whole of Ntinda below the traffic lights at the intersection taking one to Kisaasi, Bukoto, Nakawa, Kyambogo or Kiwatule watched with bated breath.  

“This guy is our Denzel,” said my breathless old friend Albert Latim. 
Those days, a ribbon of bars stretched down from a watering hole called “The Deep”, where Fraine Supermarket sits today, past Yakobo’s pork joint to other similar drinking establishments. 

These included a Russian bar, the infamous Rock Catalina Restaurant and Dave Kazoora’s “Buddies” where, to the clink of beer glasses, punters watched in awe as Gae boarded a plane bound for Bow, London, near the 3 Mills Studios.
Today, Gae is not our Denzel. I think that honour literally goes to media personality Denzel Mwiyeretsi. And all those haunts that raptly witnessed Gae’s 15 minutes of fame are all but gone.

Survivor  
Ntinda Take Away Restaurant & Bar, located next to Fraine Supermarket and Chillis Takeaway, is the last surviving bastion of the Old Ntinda. 
It is located at the same place and is the same size it was in 2003. 
During the Covid-19 pandemic, it added the word “restaurant” to its title in order to comply with pandemic-inspired regulations. 
It was originally called Ntinda Takeaway & Bar. 
“I have been coming to this place since 1996, that’s how long this joint has been here! Can you believe it?” asked one customer. 

The 30 to 80 age bracket
This customer, who says he is 46 years old, is part of an elder citizen clientele that frequent this establishment. 
The customers are as old as 84 years of age.
Moreover, it was originally where Ntinda’s “council of elders” sat and soberly deliberated on the rising tide of booze consumption and whether DJ Alexander Ndaula was getting too high on its supply. 
Today, a group of less officious persons in the form of four old Budonians meet at this joint religiously every Saturday evening to imbibe Guinness and Club Beer. 
The youngest amongst them is 76 years old and he is appropriately called “the baby” of the group. 
If there are young people who come to this establishment, they are either enjoying a working lunch or have simply stumbled upon an establishment which can serve them delicious traditional meals and a beer at the same time. 
Having been top-to-tail refurbished over the years to be more compliant with the many changes happening around it, it still has a quaint feel to it. 
As a result, its furniture sprawl is more utilitarian than appealing to the senses of superior taste. 

Large establishment 
Although it does not stand out like a sore thumb, it embodies all the old-school charm of an Ntinda that is fast fading. 
Its restaurant area is located in a cavernous section perfect for political conspiracies, you could easily plot the overthrow of government here and nobody would even notice. 

Its street-level façade houses a bar which partly spills onto the pavement where hawkers, boda bodas and shoe repairmen dominate the concrete showcase. 
It also offers a walkthrough, to the right, suited to al fresco dining.
Football fans of all stripes love to nestle in the bar and scream their anti-social distancing lungs out. 

Although the din of football fan drowns out the conversation of the romantic on a date, Ntinda Takeaway Restaurant & Bar does not need to change its rhythm by choosing one over the other.  Nor does it require that missing comma that should come after “Takeaway” in its name. 
Instead, it should stand as a proud monument to a Kampala seemingly obsessed with the 90s. 
After all, many of the city’s movers and shakers came of age in the 90s and they influenced their children to appreciate the 90s, outside of MC Hammer pants.  There is indeed a lot to commend the old Ntinda to the new.  

How Ntinda has changed
Ntinda used to be the suburb that never slept. 
Although it was home to the rested Minister’s Village and a citizenry of the upper reaches of Ugandan society, it was also the ground upon which the late Alan the Cantankerous loved to stomp. 

Some places, of course, had to go.  For instance, Rock Catalina restaurant, originally where AAR Ntinda Health Centre is now located, had the outrageous bucket night of five beers for Shs10,000.
So revellers would walk in and later crawl out, at dawn. That was the kind of party that was going down, literally. For Rock Catalina swept down, in less than dramatic fashion, from an uneasy assemblage of pork joints that dotted the area where Fraine Supermarket is found today. 

The beers were cheap and, past midnight, the pork often arrived as a burnt offering. No wonder, despite its charred appearance on a moonless night, you still felt like you had been deified by the customer service of the place. 
Yakobo’s Pork Joint was dingy, like its new location in Kiggowa opposite Isabella Bar and Restaurant, but there was a discreet class about it 
Since everybody from a pool cue-wielding Samuel Odonga Otto to a quizzical Kiryowa Kiwanuka jaunted this haunt.  

Right above it was The Deep, we are still not sure if this name was directly stolen from the mid to late 1990s TV series Sunset Beach.
Ben Evans (Clive Robertson), a cast member of Sunset Beach, California, owned a club called The Deep.  Its Ntinda incarnation, as it were, was divided into two sections. 

One section with a dance floor and the other section characterised by the length of its bar counter and a toilet at the end of it. 
It was a narrow place, that is how narrow-minded punters managed to frequent it and stir up fisticuffs every so often. 
All told, before Haruna Mall, Masters Supermarket and 80 percent of today’s Ntinda breathed life into Kampala’s scenic splendour, places  such as The Deep never closed. 

Often you would see drunkards flying without wings as their aerodynamic hindquarters sailed through the morning breeze, after they had been thrown out of a bar that tried to close. 
Mercifully, Ntinda Takeaway Restaurant & Bar has not had to resort to similar tactics in order stay relevant in today’s Ntinda. 

Back in the day
For instance, Rock Catalina restaurant, originally where AAR Ntinda Health Centre is now located, had the outrageous bucket night of  five beers for Shs 10,000!
So revelers would walk in and later crawl out, at dawn! 
That was the kind of party that was going down, literally. For Rock Catalina swept down, in less than dramatic fashion, from an uneasy assemblage of pork joints that dotted the area where Fraine Supermarket is found today. 

Did you know?         
Ntinda Take Away Restaurant & Bar, located next to Fraine Supermarket and Chillis Takeaway, is the last surviving bastion of the Old Ntinda. 
It is located at the same place and is the same size it was in 2003. 
During the Covid-19 pandemic, it added the word “restaurant” to its title in order to comply with pandemic-inspired regulations. 
It was originally called Ntinda Takeaway & Bar. 
“I have been coming to this place since 1996, that’s how long this joint has been here! Can you believe it?” asked one customer. 

30 to 80 age bracket
This customer, who says he is 46 years old, is part of an elder citizen clientele that frequent this establishment. 
The customers are as old as 84 years of age.

Moreover, it was originally where Ntinda’s “council of elders” sat and soberly deliberated on the rising tide of booze consumption and whether DJ Alexander Ndaula was getting too high on its supply. 
Today, a group of less officious persons in the form of  four  old Budonians meet at this joint religiously every Saturday evening to imbibe Guinness and Club Beer. 
The youngest amongst them is 76 years old and he is appropriately called “the baby” of the group. 

New life
Before Haruna Mall, Masters Supermarket and 80 percent of today’s Ntinda breathed life into Kampala’s scenic splendour, places  such as The Deep never closed.