A coffee company is not where most bar guides start, and that is exactly why Bootlegger earns the page. The Sea Point room pours flat whites at 8am and craft beer under neon by 8pm, and the music never really changes.
Published December 02, 2025 · By Daniel Okafor
Bootlegger Coffee Company sits at 39 Regent Road in Sea Point, a few blocks back from the Atlantic promenade where Cape Town walks its dogs and watches the sun drop behind the sea. Three friends, Pieter Bloem and the Basson brothers De Waal and Antonie, opened the first store in 2012 and grew the name into a string of cafes across the city, per the company's own account on Wikipedia. The Sea Point branch is one of the rooms that keeps the lights on past dark.
The hook for this listing is the After Dark menu. Bootlegger's own site describes the evening shift as a switch from cortados to cocktails, craft beer and tapas, and the Sea Point counter runs it seven nights a week. Eat Out's Cape Town listing confirms the room serves beer and cocktails alongside the burgers, which is the rare coffee shop that grows a proper bar after sundown.
The room reads like a record sleeve. Every Bootlegger store hangs one line from an AC/DC song on the wall in neon, and that single design choice tells you the whole story before a drink lands. The seating is loose, the counter is long, and the light is warm enough to make a Tuesday feel like a Friday.
Order a local lager or a glass of South African craft beer and a plate of tapas to share. The cocktails lean classic rather than clever, so a well-built gin and tonic or a negroni is the safer call than anything off a seasonal list. The coffee program stays open through the evening too, which means a designated driver has somewhere real to sit rather than a soda gun.
The crowd shifts with the clock. Remote workers and laptop regulars hold the tables through the afternoon, then the after-work Sea Point set drifts in around six for a beer before dinner. By nine the room belongs to friends splitting plates and arguing over which AC/DC line is on the wall this time.
Sea Point matters to the read. The neighbourhood runs along the coast between the city bowl and Camps Bay, and Regent Road is its spine, lined with restaurants, corner shops and the kind of foot traffic that keeps a bar honest. Bootlegger fits the street rather than fighting it, a casual room for a casual stretch of the city.
Time the visit with a little intent. Come before five and you get a quiet table, strong coffee and the pick of the counter. Come after seven on a weekend and the After Dark service is in full swing, so expect a wait for a table and a louder soundtrack.
What keeps Bootlegger on a Cape Town list is the honesty of the format. It does not pretend to be a destination cocktail den, and it is better for it. A neighbourhood room that pours good coffee, cold beer and a short cocktail list under a rock and roll sign is its own kind of win, which our roundup of the best bars in Cape Town tracks across the peninsula.
For the casual end of the city, the Cape Town after work bars guide and our Cape Town bar guide map where Sea Point sits among the city bowl and the Atlantic Seaboard.
Bootlegger pairs naturally with the rooms around it. A short walk away, The Office in Sea Point runs the late counterpart on the same strip, while Truth Coffee Bar takes the coffee to a different theatre in the city bowl and Beerhouse on Long Street holds the craft beer end downtown.
