Local Shebeen - Soweto

Shebeens (the word comes from the Irish síbín, ‘illicit drinking house’) emerged in townships in the 1920s and 1930s when black South Africans were forbidden from buying or drinking ‘European’ liquor. The matriarchal ‘shebeen queens’ — many of whom became powerful community figures — brewed traditional sorghum beer, distilled grain spirits and ran the taverns out of their backyards. By the 1960s shebeens were also the meeting places of jazz musicians, writers and exiled politicians.

With the legalisation of township liquor licences in 1962 and especially after 1994, shebeens have steadily formalised. The famous Vilakazi Street strip — anchored by Sakhumzi, Nambitha and a handful of others — is now a comfortable tourist-friendly version of the experience: long communal tables under shade umbrellas, buffet lunches of pap, tripe, oxtail, chakalaka and grilled meats, and a steady soundtrack of kwaito, gqom and old-school South African jazz.

Off the main strip, hundreds of backyard shebeens still operate in Orlando, Diepkloof, Meadowlands, Pimville and the rest of Soweto. Many are quiet during the week and crowded on weekends, when soccer matches are projected on outdoor screens and the music runs into the evening. Going to a backyard shebeen with a local guide is one of the more unfiltered ways to experience daily township life.

Beyond the food, the shebeen is a social institution. Negotiations, gossip, celebrations, condolences and political discussion all happen across the same plastic tables. South African beer (Castle, Black Label, Carling) flows alongside Heineken and craft brews; the more adventurous can ask for umqombothi, the traditional sorghum beer still brewed in five-litre buckets in many shebeens.

We build a shebeen lunch into every Wanderer Soweto Tour, with Sakhumzi or one of its Vilakazi Street neighbours as the default for groups, and a curated visit to a backyard shebeen on request for guests looking for a less polished, more local experience.