HI All,
The Meikles Hotel has always been one of those icons that travellers from all over the world have come to know as “The 5
Star Place to Stay” in the capital city of Zimbabwe. This popular destination, situated across the road from Africa Square,
has been mentioned in many lauded fictional books as the central meeting point for both scribes and wealthy socialites.
In the early 1980s we had offices across the road in Travel Centre, so, at cocktail hour on Friday nights, it was very convenient
for us to wander across to have a few much needed drinks at the Flagstaff pub on the ground floor of Meikles. On those
occasions when we wanted to entertain a special lady, our first port of call would be the Can Can bar upstairs where we
would stand around with dinner jackets and tie sipping an ice cold aperitif.
I am part of a large WhatsApp group of folks that love their wines known as the Grapevine Wine Group. It was set up
by Stan Higgins and, once a month, he arranges for a limited number of us to meet at different venues to sample
a few complimentary bottles of wine from a variety of local wine merchants.
Last Thursday our port of call was the Can Can bar where we slowly sipped tasting samples of 9 different wines.
Stan is a wine connoisseur so he gave us his analysis of each tipple as we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the
Grapevine group. We then adjourned to the La Fontaine – that long heralded, top of the range restaurant next door to
the Can Can. It has long been a tradition for a pianist to play dinner music throughout the meal and I made good of
the vibes by dancing my social jive with a couple of beautiful ladies.
Most of you will be aware that the Meikles Hotel has now changed hands and we were fortunate to have the new owner,
Mr Ali, join us for dinner. There are plans for a major facelift of the hotels 300+ rooms and the next phase, now being
implemented, starts with knocking down the Can Can Bar and La Fontaine to make way for a new Pool bar plus
numerous other improvements. I managed to snap a quick photo (Below) of Mr Ali together with his international CEO
and the General manager of Meikles. I look forward to visiting the new look Meikles Hotel when they launch their new
look together with their, yet to be decided, Hotel name.
In the meanwhile you can turn on your sound and listen to Tom Jones singing “The Last Dance”
(Originally sung by the Drifters) – appropriate for me on Thursday night at La Fontaine!
Ciao Mike G.
