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via Stay22About this place Beefcakes
Beefcakes is a gay burger restaurant on Cape Town's Somerset Road, a strip known for its LGBTQ+ dining and entertainment.
Cape Town has a reputation as an inclusive city, and Somerset Road is its main artery. You'll find a range of queer-friendly places here, so it's easy to hit a few spots in one night. Beefcakes puts you right in the middle of it, walking distance from other gay bars and social spots that keep this part of town humming.
It's a burger joint, so it's casual. And that's the point. It works for a relaxed dinner, a quick bite before hitting the bars, or just a place to meet up. Like many of Cape Town's gay venues, it helps make the city feel like a real home for LGBTQ+ travelers.
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Do not go it's closed down
We booked with Beefcakes Illovo and paid R 3 800.00 by EFT. We received a message 4 days prior to our function that Beefcakes has apparently closed and is under liquidation. We have tried to reach them on numerous platforms (telephonic, instagram, facebook, email, WhatsApp) for Cape Town & Illovo, without any response. Their website still allows you to book and pay, even when they have reportedly closed down. I am highly disappointment and all our guests invited to our function are asking how to get their money back and I have no answers for them!!! It seems that we have lost our money with no communication or explanation - extremely disappointing and unprofessional.
Really disappointed with the whole experience. We had paid our deposit for 17 ladies only to find out that they were low on stock for food and drinks. Our timeslot was from 18:00 to 21:00. We left to go and have drinks somewhere else and eat as there wasn’t any at the time we arrived. Our waiter refunded our remainder we paid and said that we can come back for the show. The show then only started at 21:00. The show was great. The service was just very bad due to a fully booked venue but little to no drinks at the bar.
Beefcakes illovo is a complete rip off. They do not respond to client emails, for queries and complaints.They lure the customer in with freebies and then charge full price at the end of the night. They advertise Burger and chips on their menu but the burger comes with no bun, and they still charge full price. I will Never go back
I was very excited as this would have been my first time at the well-known Beefcakes. Unfortunately, what a letdown by the service. Our drag queen (Kitty Delaranza) was nothing short of fabulous, and we absolutely loved her. Besides her, the rest of the experience was horrid, and I will never come and support Beefcakes again. It felt like a Mickey Mouse operation. Let me explain: when we got there, we had a look at the drink menu, of which everything in the top left-hand part of the menu was scratched out by a red marker, indicating not available. There were at least six cocktails, which seemed like signature cocktails, not being available. Besides that, we thought that wouldn’t put a damper on our night. However, when we asked about the drink that serves 8 people, we were told that also wasn’t available. Never mind, we thought we would just go for wine, of which we were told they had absolutely no white wine or rosé. Now, coming back from a hospitality background, I would've done everything I could to make sure our clients were happy. I saw that the local liquor store 200 m away was open, so I asked about corkage and left my seat, walked to the store, and bought my own wine to bring in. I feel one of the staff could've done this to make sure that they had enough wine to serve the clients, not the client to go their own way because the bar didn’t have any stock. When we arrived back from the liquor store, they were very quick to collect the wine from us, and we sat back down. We waited approximately 10 to 15 minutes, and no one came out with our wine with no explanation we just sat there waiting. So I went to the bar and asked where the wine was and if we could please have it served. Eventually, they said they were just getting glasses as they didn’t have any wine glasses left. To me, this was already so unprofessional; it makes me wonder where the management presence actually was. They seemed very flustered and just not up to par of the expectations that this establishment demands. After requesting sparkling water, I was told we could only have two, as they didn’t have any more… Seems like this was the trend of the evening… Eventually, we got the wine, and we could sit down and have a drink and watch the show. Our waiter was absolutely wonderful, very kind; however, it seemed like he had a lot on his plate or was very distracted that evening because he kept on forgetting about our table. Only closer to the end of the evening, he was more attentive to us. We had to ask three different occasions when we would get our food. They brought out the toppings first, which sat by us for 20 minutes before our burgers came out. By then, our toppings were ice-cold. Our burgers were cold as well, including the fries. I am almost convinced our waiter forgot about our food; having to ask for three times was quite frustrating, and this was in the time period of over an hour. Once again, the show was absolutely wonderful; however, I definitely think management needs to shape up and turn this amazing potential of a place into something that the reputation demands.
Horrendous Experience from your bouncer's So friends of ours had told me about this place and I read your company's reviews I was quite until earlier this evening. Myself and a friend were one of the first people to arrive, We were met by one of your bouncers who clearly seemed wasn't having the best day. As we approached the entrance we met with the "who told you , that your kind belongs here" gaze. We greeted politely and were asked do we have a booking. Confused we replied no , With attitude we were told that there's an event on. Understandably so we said okay we didn't know We walked off. As we were walking we nicely heard your bouncer call at one of his co-workers who had come to the door, " thank goodness those Gorgon the destroyers are not coming and spending their change in here. Both of us pretended we couldn't hear him and walked off if that's how your bouncers are treating people I don't wanna know what goes on inside. It sad because I really wanted to support your establishment. Will definitely be supporting the competition.
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Last updated on 10 August 2026