Ndash dishes up the nosh
Traditional SA fare served in the ’burbs
Nearly everyone living in any of the cities in this country has gone to elokshini to buy food they swear can only be bought there. It was this behaviour, coupled with a trip to China, that convinced entrepreneur Sithembiso Ndashe to start his food business.
“I was moved by how the Chinese celebrate their food culture, with no compromise. Every corner that you go there’s a commercial [store], there’s a street vendor that sells strictly Chinese food.” Ndashe then started Ndash Food Concepts fuelled by his passion for food. He brought traditional South African dishes to the ’burbs. He started out in Midrand in 2013 and has since expanded the areas he works in and his menu. He describes his business as a mobile restaurant, though he doesn’t have a food truck. “When I say mobile, we do pop-ups. In a way, we’re basically mobile by bringing the food wherever we are doing work. Whether we’re in a restaurant, or we form our own restaurant for the day.”
A marketer by profession, Ndashe started messing around with the pots when he was in grade 8. His mother went back to school and not being a fan of some of the foods
cooked by their nanny/helper he’d cook for himself and his little brother. His father, a working man, was also not a stranger in the kitchen. “Everyone wants this kind of food but… you have to travel to Soweto, Tembisa and Alex. Literally again, as a marketer I looked at the opportunity and I took the risk.”
The 36-year-old lists people’s diet and copycats as some of the challenges he’s come across.
“People don’t do something because they are passionate about it, they do it because they see someone else doing it. There was a point where some people stole images of mine and were using them as theirs. People think this thing is easy but if you don’t really have any passion behind it, you’re not going to get far.” Ndashe often partners with various brands to showcase the variety of their products in interesting ways.
“I’ve been going at it, I’ve had bad months, I’ve had bad years but because of passion, because there’s a bigger story, you know every year there’s something new, there’s something we expand on or we grow on. That’s why we’ve managed to stick around.”