Get your paws in the sun at the awesome possum’s beach bar!

The “center city” bay is the best place to be cool on the hottest days at the height of summer. There, the possum’s famous juice bar has become the center of the action. All the waterfront regulars gather weekly to hear his eclectic mix of recent worldbeat, fusion, and smooth jazz, sip his fresh passionfruit smoothies, or indulge in his famous Fuzzy Navel (made with POG instead of peach). Since he opened his sandy establishment in 1985, it has become a landmark in this waterfront capital of the Southern Hemisphere. Many in his crowd live only a walk or bike ride away – many come barepawed on the tram as the barstools are only a few meters from the station.

Now, it’s the bright and blue start of a new summer, January 9th, 1989. Everybody is out for the first day above 30C. Brisk wind powers windsurfers across the misty tops of gust-shredded whitecaps. The gale pushes back the metropolitan smell of cigarettes, Holden WB exhaust, and meat pie stands. This spot smells like pealed-off neoprene wetsuits, flowery sunscreen, the tart vapor of oranges and the musty waft of guavas – and likely the sweat and paws of anyone who’s just jogged or rollerbladed to the counter. The crowd is always pushing for a seat, leaning over to shout, bending over to pull off a wetsuit, or reaching for a glass, so get used to getting it on you.

Possum goes by many names and tells of many life chapters – nobody knows his real name, but they know he wears his heart on his sleeve. Always willing to help a friend, loan a buck, offer his ear, or lend his own special take on water conditions, everyone feels close to him in some way. He talks of coming to the Cape to be a musician, an artist, a cook, a cabinet installer, and even an apartment super – somehow nothing suits him like this role at the helm of the bar.

As a leader of the community, he’s been known to play dead in front of the police line at a protest and hiss at anyone who even seems to support Reagan or de Klerk. He absolutely ensures the sand is a safe space to find camaraderie and consolation among the “GLBT” community in downtown. It’s rumored since March of 1984 he sells interesting barking dog prints to raise funds for those who’d recently lost roommates to the ‘disease’. While these are the real reasons they call him the Awesome Possum, he still lives for the moments he creates - right at his counter. He’s always striving to import (and blast on his duct taped CFD-D77) the latest album to capture the energy of the downtown waterfront. Today, he surprised everyone by finally making the switch to Compact Discs as he held up the Yiffington’s newest album “Tourist in Pawradise”.

It’s said that he clinched his unique beachfront location through connections to old jobsite work buds building the new concrete “boardwalk”. He’d only known the Cape for a decade but rallied the neighborhood to push the city for a memorial plaque honoring the waterfront’s industrial past. You see, it had once been the burgeoning heart of a seaplane cargo wharf until the late 1930s. Some say the wood planks beneath his bar he’d salvaged from a pier excavated in that very sand. They’d also found half a hand-painted sign that simply said “Higher”. This became the indelible one-word slogan for the Awesome Possum’s Beach Bar.

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