Farewell Fitzroy Ngcukana, thank you for the tavern that became home

By Sipho Ngwema

There are people who own businesses. Then there are people who create homes – bra-Fitz, Fitzroy Nkosomzi Ngcukana, who has passed away at the age of 69, was one of the latter.

When many of us from Cape Town arrived in Gauteng during the late 1990s, we were chasing careers, opportunities, and a future. But every weekend, something quietly pulled us back to where we came from. That place was Bra Fitz’s watering hole in Berea, Johannesburg.

The return trip from Sunnyside, outside Pretoria, to Johannesburg was well over 100 kilometres, but we never thought twice about it. There were no GPS directions then, only word of mouth.

Yet somehow everyone knew the way. Cars would arrive from Pretoria, the East Rand, the West Rand, and every corner of Gauteng. His establishment had become more than a tavern. It had become a destination, a home.

We were