When Cape Town talks about venues, it’s usually in reference to a party. They talk about the DJs, the culture, the promoters and the crowds a specific event pulls. What they don’t talk about are the people quietly holding everything together behind the scenes. The people helping first-time promoters pull off ambitious ideas with little more than determination and a dream. The people who make a space feel safe enough to become a community.
Full disclosure: it’s difficult for me to write about EVOL without getting emotional.
The venue at 69 Hope Street that most of Cape Town knows as EVOL is, in fact, three interconnected spaces. There’s The Stag’s Head pub on the ground floor, the nightclub upstairs, and Anzac Backpackers above that. Long before EVOL became the venue’s official name, it was simply the name of a party that became so synonymous with the space, that the city started referring to the building itself as EVOL. When Bernard Fourie took over management in 2016, he made it official. Cape Town had already decided what it was called, anyways.
A lot has changed since then. The backpackers now functions largely as accommodation for staff. The club has become queerer, younger, and more politically engaged (you’re welcome). Stag’s Head still pours R80 “double + mix” specials, although these days they’ll offer you popcorn with it, too. Despite the changes, the thing that has always made 69 Hope Street so special has remained the same: the people.
In fact, it’s thinking of my family over at EVOL that inspired this entire series, which makes it an honour to tell this story. Because if EVOL has survived while so many other venues have disappeared, it’s because of the people who have chosen to care for it. Few embody this more than Samantha Robinson, Xoliswa Menyane (AKA Babes), and Skye Du Plessis, who you have no doubt encountered on a night spent sweating on the checkerboard dance floor.
You’re likely to find Robinson in her corner to the left of The Stag’s Head bar, glasses up above her forehead, puffing sternly on a cigarette as she examines the numbers in her GrandSlots book. Or, after dark, assuming a very similar position while seated in the club’s office on the first landing upstairs. For Robinson, the venue’s story is inseparable from her own.
“I met my late husband at The Stag’s Head, and that is where it all started,” she says. A former teacher, what began as helping out during school holidays eventually became a career. Today, she manages the venue, although describing her role as simply “manager” feels inadequate. As she puts it, she has her “hand in every slice of cake that the industry can offer.”
That means cashing up gambling machines before most people have had their morning coffee, managing stock orders, filling the ATM, preparing floats, coordinating events and ensuring the venue continues to function day after day. It’s the kind of work nobody notices until something goes wrong.
“Being a teacher taught me to listen, have patience and to resolve problems,” Robinson says. “Dealing with adults is not as far removed from dealing with kids, if you know what I mean.”
That patience is a recurring theme among all three women. Hospitality, particularly in nightlife, often feels less like customer service and more like crisis management. On any given evening there are promoters, artists, technicians, security, bar staff and patrons all relying on the same venue to deliver a successful night. When things go wrong, it’s usually someone behind the scenes who has to figure out how to make them right.
For Du Plessis, who joined EVOL in 2022 as a bartender and manager-in-training, that unpredictability is simply part of the job. But her journey to the venue also says something about the way EVOL has always operated. After years spent working everywhere from restaurants and liquor stores to bookshops and pet shops, she received an unexpected phone call from Robinson, who remembered her from years earlier at another bar.
“I received a call from an old customer from Clives. It was Sammy, asking if I would be interested in being employed by her bar.” It’s a small detail, but a telling one. Ask enough people how they ended up at EVOL and you’ll eventually uncover a similar story. The venue has always had a knack for collecting people and giving them room to grow.
Today, Du Plessis works as what she describes as the venue’s “main stand in” — part bartender, part manager-in-training, part problem solver. “My job is to make sure I’m available as a bartender when others cannot make it and as a manager when they need me,” she explains. “A normal party shift is a gamble at EVOL,” she says. “You never know if it’s gonna be busy or dead.” Broken plumbing. Faulty card machines. Running out of cups. Stock shortages. Electrical issues. The kinds of problems that never appear on Instagram but can determine whether an event succeeds or fails. “Unforeseen problems are entirely on you.”
Robinson laughs when I ask whether she’s ever received a request that sounded impossible. “Impossible requests? Thousands,” she says. “You perform miracles, step back, and go, ‘Damn, how did I do that?'” I can attest to this — just beware when asking to borrow a pair of scissors from her. They always get stolen.
Yet for all the logistical chaos that comes with running a venue like EVOL, what each woman speaks about most is people. Ask Menyane what makes EVOL special and she doesn’t mention music or reputation. Instead, she talks about “meeting different kinds of people and genders.” After more than two decades working in hospitality, and nearly a decade at EVOL itself, her understanding of the job is remarkably straightforward. “I keep calm and try to attend to each person,” she says.
She’s underplaying just how good she is at what she does. Watching Babes turn a bar while it’s spinning is kind of magical. Few other people have the ability to manage such overwhelming chaos, dealing with droves of club kids in various stages of rolling, and an endless soundtrack of heavy club music with patience and care. “I am very friendly and I love being around people, and I am a fun person,” she says.
After spending five minutes in her orbit, you’ll realise she’s telling the truth. “The most challenging part of this job is dealing with intoxicated, problematic customers,” says Robinson. “You have to be patient, assertive, but also diplomatic.” Menyane is all three, and she makes you feel safe with her serving you.
For Du Plessis, the regulars keep her invested in the space. “The people, the regulars and my colleagues,” she says. “They make it fun and exciting.” She speaks fondly about working alongside Menyane and the rest of the team. “We’ve worked in the dark with no till and only one phone’s torch during loadshedding. That kind of bonding you can’t get just anywhere.”
What is abundantly clear is how much of the venue is built on the work and dedication of these women. Try name another bar in town where you might walk in to find not a single man present on the floor or behind the scenes. As women working in an industry still dominated by men, all three have encountered assumptions about their abilities in different ways. Du Plessis puts it bluntly. “Men tend to think women are of lower intelligence.” Her solution is simple. “It’s best to let results speak for themselves.” Robinson approaches it much the same way. “I personally deal with it by doing my thing, getting things sorted and walking away,” she says. “You, as a man who underestimated me, make your own conclusion.”
Recognition, however, isn’t necessarily what they’re after. “I am not worried about what people know about my contribution,” says Robinson. “I am not looking for a badge. I just want to build good relations, and to make sure everyone is happy.” Menyane feels similarly. What she wants isn’t praise, but consideration. “I don’t need much recognition,” she says. “But I do need protection.”
Menyane lands on something important that’s not considered or discussed enough — the safety of nightlife workers once they leave the venue. “We travel at night, often alone,” she says. “I need people to think about that more and put more effort into protecting us when we travel home.” EVOL has recognised this. According to Fourie, the venue recently converted a block of rooms in the backpackers section into an exclusive, female-only dorm, intended for female staff to access and use after late night shifts. As patrons and promoters, we can also do our bit. Perhaps offer to wait and share a ride with staff once their duties are done. Or if you’ve driven to the venue, offer a lift.
The truth is that most people will never notice these women’s work. They’ll simply arrive, have a good night, and go home. Which, in many ways, means Robinson, Menyane, and Du Plessis have done their jobs perfectly. And if Robinson has any advice for the next generation of women looking to carve their own path through nightlife, it is characteristically direct: “Don’t feel inferior or undermined. Be yourself, be strong, be positive, reach your goals. Just do you. You can. You are capable. You are powerful.”
She lifts her glasses back up, diverts her gaze, and continues smoking her cigarette.
All photographs by Laura McCullagh.
