Author: Azhar Obaray

What Actually Makes a VIP Area Feel VIP

A guest walks past the rope, finds their seat, and before a single staff member has said a word to them, they’ve already decided how this evening is going to go. Nobody puts that part in the brief, but it’s the truest thing about VIP service. The room talks first, and everything on the table is doing the talking.

The glass says it before the drink does

Standard bar glassware reads as ordinary the second it’s set down next to real crystal. A step up in weight and clarity tells a guest the room takes them seriously before a word’s been spoken. Match the glass to the drink properly, a coupe for sparkling, the correct bowl for red versus white, a rocks glass with real heft for spirits, because guests might not name what’s wrong with the wrong glass, but they’ll feel it. And none of it means anything if the glass isn’t spotless. A water spot near the rim undoes all of it in half a second.

The crockery is doing more work than people give it credit for

Food service in a VIP area should feel like part of the evening, not a separate errand tacked onto it. Fine porcelain or bone china turns even a single canapé into something considered. A charger under the plate, even for one small bite, tells the guest the whole course was actually thought through before it landed in front of them. Chipped crockery, mismatched patterns, plates that clatter when they’re stacked, guests notice all of it even when they can’t articulate why the table suddenly feels less premium. And disposables have no place here at all. Not for a snack, not for a napkin. Paper and plastic don’t belong anywhere near a VIP table.

Cutlery is the detail people only notice when it’s wrong

Nobody compliments good cutlery. They just quietly register that the fork feels solid, that the knife has actual weight, that the set at their place matches the set at the table next to them. What they do notice is the opposite, cutlery that’s thin, mismatched, or sends a flat metallic sound across the table the second it touches a plate. A full matching set, properly weighted and properly polished, is one of the cheapest ways to raise the entire perception of the table without touching the menu at all.

The environment either supports the table or undercuts it

The best glassware and crockery in the world can’t save a VIP area that gets the environment wrong. Lighting that sits warmer and lower than the general space, seating with actual breathing room instead of chairs crammed in for capacity, proper linen instead of anything paper, a floor that’s clean and a table that’s been properly reset between guests, all of it works together to tell the guest they’re somewhere different. The moment the environment feels identical to the main venue, no amount of good crockery convinces anyone otherwise.

Real VIP service is invisible

Here’s where people get it wrong. They think VIP service means more attention, more check ins, more staff hovering nearby. Wrong. The best VIP service is invisible, until the guest realises they never had to ask for a single thing. Water refilled before the glass runs low. A plate cleared the second it’s empty, not the second someone flags a waiter down. A name and a usual order remembered by the second visit. That’s not more service. That’s the service that got there first.

It has to hold up, not just look good

A VIP area styled to look impressive from the entrance and one built to hold up for three hours of real service are two completely different jobs. Does the glass still feel premium on the third refill? Is the cutlery still in matching sets after the third table turn? Does the linen still look crisp two hours in? If the answer’s no anywhere along the line, it was never VIP. It was decorated to look like it.

A guest can’t tell you why a table felt right. They’ll just tell you it did.

So walk your own VIP area tonight and ask yourself, would you notice if any of this was missing?

In South Africa, we love nothing more than good food, warm sunsets, and celebrating great times with friends. When September arrives and Munich comes alive, our festive energy matches it step for step. Whether you are flying off to Germany or raising a glass right here under our African sky, bringing the vibrant spirit of Oktoberfest to your table is easier than you think!

South Africa’s Own Oktoberfest Tradition

Oktoberfest may have started in Munich more than 200 years ago, but in South Africa we have embraced the celebration as our own. Across the country, beer gardens, breweries, restaurants, hotels, and outdoor festivals embrace the season with Bavarian-inspired menus, live oompah bands, traditional dress, and, of course, plenty of exceptional beer.

There is something that feels naturally South African about Oktoberfest. We already love gathering around long tables, sharing generous platters, enjoying live music, and spending hours outdoors with family and friends. Oktoberfest simply adds a German twist to traditions we know well, turning the start of Spring into a lively celebration of food, drink, and community.

What Oktoberfest Means to South Africans

For South Africans, Oktoberfest is less about recreating Munich exactly and more about celebrating together. It marks the arrival of spring, warmer weather, and the start of a season filled with outdoor events, sporting occasions, and social gatherings. It is an excuse to reconnect with friends, and enjoy the simple pleasure of good hospitality.

For restaurants, bars, breweries, and lodges, it is also one of the hospitality calendar’s most exciting seasonal events. Special menus, beer tastings, themed décor, and festive entertainment create memorable experiences that keep guests coming back throughout September and October.

Imagine stepping into bustling festival tents filled with laughter and mouthwatering scents. Kick off your feast with delicate Weißwurst dipped in sweet Bavarian mustard, or bite into a crisp Bratwurst in a fresh roll, Munich’s lovely answer to our beloved boerewors roll. Add some tangy Currywurst for a zip of street food magic, and pass around warm, salty pretzels made for sharing with your crew.

No feast is complete without legendary beer, and Munich’s famous Big Six breweries bring incredible flavour to every glass. Enjoy the bold, malty notes of Hofbräuhaus, the rich depth of Löwenbräu, and the sweet perfection of Paulaner. For classic craft heritage, Augustiner delivers silky smooth tradition, Spaten offers lovely toasted warmth, and Hacker-Pschorr brings a bright, fruity spark. Whether you crave a deep amber Märzen or a light, crisp Festbier, every pour is made for easy sipping all afternoon long.

Raise your glass, enjoy every single bite, and share the joy with the people you love. From Germany to South Africa, experience warm sunsets, brilliant company, and unforgettable moments. Prost!

That time of the year again. Yes, it’s the API summit, meaning a gathering of investors, developers and people who are willing to provide capital.

Investor appetite for Africa’s hospitality sector is not the issue. Getting that capital to actually become a working, opening venue is where things fall apart. The projects that make it through are the ones where everyone understood the operational vision from day one, where the planning had room built in for things not going exactly to plan, where the cost and timeline numbers were based on real evidence rather than hope, and where the people delivering it had actually delivered something like it before. Nail those fundamentals and you get certainty, you get outcomes you can actually predict, and you get a real path from an idea on paper to a venue that opens its doors on time.

Now even before the ribbon is cut, the kitchen must be stocked.

How does one create the certainty, security and predictability that takes a project from concept to operation. As Core Catering, with over 25 years in the hospitality industry, we know that having your kitchen stocked prior to the ribbon cut changes everything.

Start with the story the glass tells

Before you even get to durability or price, ask what the glass says about your venue. A heritage manufacturer with decades of craftsmanship behind it signals something different to your guests than an unbranded budget import, even before a single drink is poured. If you’re positioning your venue as serious about its drinks programme, the glassware needs to back that up. This matters more the higher your price point climbs. Nobody questions a R45 house wine in a basic glass. Everybody notices when a R180 cocktail arrives in something that feels flimsy.

Durability is the argument that actually saves you money

This is where most venues get it wrong. They shop on unit price per glass instead of cost per year of use, and breakage quietly eats the difference and then some.

Look for ranges where the reinforcement sits specifically at the rim. That’s the part of any glass that takes almost every knock during service, from the dishwasher rack to the ice bucket to a rushed hand during peak trade. Glassware engineered with extra strength through that zone, rather than treated uniformly across the whole piece, is solving the actual problem rather than a general one. Ask your supplier directly what happens if a rim chips. A guarantee or replacement policy on rim damage tells you the manufacturer trusts their own engineering enough to back it.

Think about your back of house, not just your front of house

Storage gets forgotten in the excitement of choosing glassware that photographs well. Ranges built with proper stacking design, stable rings that stop glasses locking together and needing to be forced apart, save you shelf space and prevent one of the biggest hidden causes of breakage in a working kitchen. If your storage is tight, and most new venues discover their storage is tighter than planned, this becomes a real operational consideration and not a nice to have.

The feel matters as much as the look

Glassware shapes how a drink is actually experienced. A well finished rim changes how a guest perceives aroma and flavour on the first sip, which is a genuine upsell tool for any venue building a cocktail or wine programme around premium pricing. Colour that’s built into the glass itself rather than applied as a coating will survive a commercial dishwasher cycle after cycle without fading or wearing thin, which matters enormously for venues running branded or coloured serveware as part of their identity.

So which range actually ticks all these boxes

Consider a design that reads as premium on the table. Engineering that protects the part of the glass that fails first. A stacking system that respects how tight most commercial kitchens actually are. Put all of that together and you land on Stölzle Lausitz.

It’s the kind of range that looks right on opening night and still looks right eighteen months into full trade, which is the real test. Every glass on your bar doing quiet work toward how your venue is perceived, from day one and long after that ribbon gets cut.

The Glass That Survives a Month of Openings

Picture it. A packed gallery on a Thursday night, someone’s holding a glass of red in one hand and gesturing at a painting with the other, and three people deep in an argument about whether the artist meant it ironically are all slowly drifting closer to a table covered in more of the same glasses. Nobody walks in thinking about the glassware. They’re thinking about the art, the wine, the person they came with, the person they didn’t expect to see. At Core Catering, this is the part of the night we’ve spent years watching from the supply side. Somewhere underneath all of that conversation, the glass in every hand is quietly doing more to shape how the whole night feels than almost anything else in the room.

Now do that every single night for a month.

FNB Art Joburg and a city full of Open City events turn September into something closer to a marathon than a single evening. New gallery, new crowd, new opening, night after night, for thirty days straight. And somewhere behind every one of those nights is the same small, unglamorous job nobody talks about at the actual event. Someone has to wash, stack, carry and reset the same glasses, over and over, in the gap between one crowd leaving and the next one arriving.

It’s an odd kind of endurance test, honestly. Not for the art, not for the wine, for the glassware itself. One good night, any glass can survive. It’s the fifteenth night, the twenty second night, the one where everyone’s tired and the stack goes back on the shelf a little faster than it should, that actually tells you something.

Most of what wears a glass out has nothing to do with anyone actually drinking from it. It’s the small stuff. A rim knocks another rim mid-pour while two people lean in close over a painting. A rushed stack after closing because the venue wants to lock up and go home. Straight from a hot wash into an ice bucket twenty minutes later without anyone thinking twice. None of it looks dramatic at the moment. All of it adds up, quietly, across thirty nights, until it shows.

And it does show. A gallery whose glasses are chipped and mismatched by week three reads as tired, even if the art on the walls is exactly as good as it was on opening night. A gallery whose glasses still look sharp, still catch the light the same way, still feel solid in the hand on night thirty, reads as a venue that had its whole month together. That’s not a small difference. It’s the kind of thing people notice without being able to say exactly why one opening felt better than another.

There’s a reason some glassware just handles a month like this better than others, and it usually comes down to the parts nobody photographs. How well it stacks without jamming. Whether the rim can take a knock without chipping. Whether it still looks as good under gallery lighting on the last night as it did on the first. A lot of venues running back to back openings this September will be leaning on ONIS glassware for exactly that reason. It’s built to still be the same glass on night thirty that it was on night one, and that consistency is what actually gets remembered, even if nobody in the room could ever tell you the brand.

By the time Open City wraps and the last opening night winds down, people won’t remember the make of the glass. They’ll remember that the room felt right, all month, every single night. That’s the glass doing its job properly. Not disappearing, holding.

Why Lead Free Crystal Makes a Difference

Not all glassware is created equal.

Unlike standard soda lime glass, Stölzle’s lead free crystal offers exceptional clarity, a brilliant finish, and a distinctive ring when gently touched. The material is lighter in the hand while remaining remarkably strong, creating a premium feel that guests notice from the moment their drink is served.

Lead free crystal also delivers excellent transparency, allowing wines, cocktails, spirits, and other beverages to showcase their true colour and character.

For hospitality businesses, this means every drink is presented exactly as intended.

Built for Commercial Hospitality

Premium presentation should never come at the expense of durability.

Stölzle incorporates several advanced manufacturing techniques that make its glassware particularly well suited to busy hospitality environments.

Pulled Stem Technology

Rather than attaching the stem separately, the stem is formed directly from the bowl, creating one seamless piece of crystal. Because the stem is often the weakest point of traditional wine glasses, this construction significantly improves strength while helping reduce costly breakages.

Laser Cut Rims

Each rim is finished using precision laser cutting, creating an exceptionally thin edge. This fine finish allows drinks to flow naturally onto the palate while providing a more refined drinking experience that beverage professionals appreciate.

Dishwasher Ready Performance

Commercial dishwashing places constant stress on glassware. Stölzle crystal is designed to resist scratching, clouding, and breakage, helping venues maintain a polished presentation through thousands of service cycles.

Machine Made Precision

Every glass is manufactured to the same exact specification. Weight, balance, height, and shape remain consistent across every production run, making table settings, banqueting, and large hospitality operations look professional and uniform.

Enjoy the Difference.