From first jobs to family nights out, restaurants create memories, but in Joburg, rising operating costs, unreliable municipal services and the need for back-up power and water are choking the sector.

There is something that I think perhaps the restaurant industry does for people that other industries don't.

They provide a very large number of "firsts" in your memory. It might have been the first time you really had the full facial experience of ice cream, literally all over you and the clothes your parents had put you in for the occasion.

It might be the first time you had a particular dish, when eating french fries was something that never happened at home. And certainly not with tomato sauce!

I wouldn't be surprised if the first time you had a Coke or a Fanta (of various hues), or a fizzy drink of any kind, was in such an establishment.

When you got older, perhaps a slightly stronger drink is the memory, or even a Coke with a little of Dad's whatever mixed into it.

But perhaps the most important thing a restaurant did for you was to give you your first job.

Being a waiter has been a rite of passage for many generations in many families. It doesn't require qualifications but does force you to actually work. There are deadlines and customers and a boss you don't like and...