Ben Filmalter: Farmer’s son who made and lost food fortunes on two continents
1949-2016
BEN Filmalter, who has died in Johannesburg at the age of 67, was the trend-setting founder of the Mugg & Bean chain and a selfconfessed dreamer.
He brought the bottomless cup and generous helpings to a grateful nation and became a legend in the South African food industry.
He conceptualised, developed and ran at least 15 restaurants and American-themed coffee shops in addition to Mugg & Bean, making and losing small fortunes along the way. Some, like Linger Longer in Sandton, achieved iconic status and attracted a loyal following among the bigger shots in society, politics and business.
The names he gave his establishments were usually as arresting as the service and excellent fare: Scratch Daniels, Fat Franks, Ghengis Jones, Bacarat and Rattlesnake Diner among them.
The Rattlesnake Diner in Sandton was such a success that he attempted to franchise the brand. He opened branches in Pretoria, Benoni and Cape Town, which did not work and almost bankrupted him.
Filmalter was an optimist who never let a bad decision get him down. His philosophy was to keep moving on and trying something new. The fact that his first venture into franchising was a disaster only sharpened his desire to make a success of the next one.
In 1996 he put the last money he had into his first Mugg & Bean restaurant at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town.
It was based on a concept that came to him after visiting a coffee shop in Chicago. He got the name while queuing for a ride at Disneyland called Mug & Bean.
In 2009 he sold the Mugg & Bean licence for sub-Saharan Africa to Famous Brands for R104-million. His brother and business partner John had died and he was conHe cerned about developments in South Africa and wanted to take the brand to the US.
Filmalter opened 95 Mugg & Beans in South Africa, nine in the Middle East including Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, and two in the UK.
He moved to the US in 2011 and bought two Mexican restaurants in Charlotte, North Carolina, which became very successful. He spent the last three years of his life trying to find the right location for what he hoped would be the first of a new chain of Mugg & Bean restaurants in the US.
found what he was looking for late last year in Charleston, but by then had been diagnosed with leukaemia and given six months to live.
Filmalter was born in Vryburg in the North West on May 8 1949 and raised on his father’s farm until the age of five when his father died and the family — his mother and four siblings — moved to the East Rand. He matriculated at Springs High School.
After completing his national service he became a trainee banquet manager at the Langham Hotel in Johannesburg. He then became banquet manager at the Lanzerac Hotel in Stellenbosch where he met his wife, Judy, who was a pastry chef there.
From then on they worked closely together in all his restaurant ventures, she being in charge of the kitchen.
In 1979 he and his brother, a chartered accountant, bought Linger Longer. Their application for a loan was turned down at first but Filmalter never allowed minor setbacks like this to deter him, and no one could be more persuasive. After lunch with a couple of banking executives, the brothers got their loan.
They sold Linger Longer to their head chef and partner Walter Ulz in 2005. Desperate economic circumstances and the prospect of losing the restaurant drove Ulz to suicide in 2011.
Filmalter’s success was based on hard work — he was a workaholic — and thorough research. He leaned heavily on his observations of American food culture during his frequent trips to the US. He loved the US and intended settling there. He received his green card in February this year.
He believed in meticulous planning to such an extent that his family say he almost planned his own funeral.
He died of leukaemia 18 months after being told he had six months left to live. He is survived by his wife and sons Anthony and Adam. — Chris Barron
He brought the bottomless cup and generous helpings to a grateful nation