ABOUT US
EARLY DAYS OF GROUND CULTURE
WHERE DID GROUND CULTURE BEGIN?
Ground Culture Cafe officially opened in 2020, however the story begins before that. Sebastian Daniels, Ground Culture Founder, started writing coffee shop reviews in 2017, in honour of his dad, who used to write breakfast reviews called Sunny Side Up. This. was a way in which Sebastian connected with his dad, who at the time was suffering with dementia. He knew that he needed to make some money and had built up some fantastic relationships and decided to use his contacts that he knew from the townships to get local products in the hands of local coffee shop owners. And so, the birth of Coffee Shop Blues Wholesale was born. This allowed him to distribute SIKIs coffee and Ubusi Honey, which is bottled and produced by a township entrepreneur, to over 150 coffee shops.
Then, COVID19 came, and all of the coffee shops were closing and in a way to make some extra cash, he created a WhatsApp menu featuring all of the local products to send to family and friends, which was well received. It showed that this could have legs as a business and so Ground Culture wasborbn. Ground Culture was initially created to bridge the gap between township based products, getting them into customers hands, as this is often the barrier to entry. The business grew, doing over 100 orders in the first month and carrying on steadily until the restrictions started easing up and people started returning to stores. Soon, we had too much stock, with no place to put it and a great opportunity came to open a shop in Lower Main. We went to view the location and took the leap.
With R50,000 left to Sebastian by his dad, a second-hand coffee machine, a panini press and two menu items… Ground Culture Café officially opened in Observatory, Cape Town. We built our space by hand and intentionally kept things rustic, honest and welcoming. Observatory is still home to our main café today known for our smashburgers, burgers, speciality coffee, live comedy and local events.
PIVOTING & EXPERIMENTING
We kept growing and pivoting to make it work. During this stage between 2021 - 2023, we tried a little bit of everything. We ran our wholesale business, corporate gifting and opened a co-working. Unfortunately during this time, our lease expired and we had to say goodbye to our co-working space. It was a bitter pill to swallow, however we pushed on. We decided that it was time to focus on the cafe, and grow what we could.
We hosted some of our first events, and started to see a little magic in this.
By 2024, we started to lean into events more and got our liquor license, which allowed us to hone in on events such as comedy, the rugby and music. We underwent our biggest renovations, revamped the kitchen and added an outside roof to allow more seating outside during summer days and winter.
PRESENT
In the last year, our café, our team and our food trucks have not only grown in size, but also in heart. We are very blessed to work with a team that see's our vision and is along for the journey too.
We’ve met so many new faces, worked with incredible artists, and had the privilege of serving customers in communities all across South Africa.
Since the beginning of Ground Culture, we've always wanted to do things a little differently, and we believe we will keep doing it, while having an absolute blast too!
Every visit, every conversation and every shared coffee or burger, has shaped who we are becoming. We are so grateful for the people who choose to support us, believe in us, and continue to show up for Ground Culture.
