Refreshing memoir details Spur founder’s taste for life
• Allen Ambor’s autobiography is an honest account of his entrepreneurial spirit
As a young man, luck came my way and I grabbed it with both hands, says the founder of Spur. Allen Ambor avoids the tedium of so many selfindulgent business books by writing an absorbing biography that gives useful insights into entrepreneurship without the boredom of income statements, spreadsheets or annual reports.
Indeed, it is well into this book that one reaches the founding of the first Spur restaurant in Newlands in Cape Town, long before this steakhouse vision evolved into an extensive, multi-branded, listed franchise.
In the late 1960s, when Ambor’s dream came to fruition, there was something glamorous and magnetic for South Africans about a Wild West-themed steakhouse restaurant. Having been a waiter in one such establishment in Joburg, this dynamic young entrepreneur set off to bring the concept to Cape Town in the guise of the Golden Spur Steak Ranch, the first of many Spurs.
What is fascinating, and instructive, is how many obstacles and individuals nearly thwarted the development of Spur from the Joburg franchising investors who initially supported Ambor’s first venture, but then failed to deliver much-needed support, to the way in which his relationship with Pierre van Tonder, the CEO of the Spur group, turned sour.
What one really must admire is the determination and sheer hard work it took to get that first Spur up and running, and then to keep at it. At one stage, we read, Ambor’s exhaustion had become so intense that he was about to sell the business. But he slept on the idea, went back to work the next day, and then continued to work flat out.
It takes a force of character to make it in the hospitality business, or as he puts it: “A busy restaurant is a high-speed, high-intensity environment, ideally suited to a slightly manic, on-the-bounce personality who can’t stand standing still. So it suited me just fine.”
In his later years, as hundreds of restaurants were added to the Spur empire, Arbor became more focused on marketing, building the brand, and as executive chair he did something that probably helped him to extend his work life well beyond retirement age he delegated a lot of the day-to-day matters to his executives.
His flair for marketing is the subject of an entire chapter entitled “The biggest burger in all the world”, which details the cooking of the world’s largest burger, a charity initiative that made it into the Guinness Book of Records.
We learn a bit of the man himself, about the importance to him of yoga, even though one might have expected a restaurateur to have had more of a passion for yoghurt.
It helped him to overcome some of the stresses of the job, and he discovered Skype during the lockdown and used it to give online yoga classes. All the proceeds have gone to a charity feeding scheme, Ladles of Love, which he had used his management and logistic skills to help establish.
What makes this autobiography stand out is the honesty and insight with which Ambor’s tale is told. There is a dishonest tendency these days to recoil from speaking ill of the dead, but this author found the courage to recall and assess his falling-out with Van Tonder.
The chapter “Remembering Pierre” details the reaction of the Spur founder when he learnt that Van Tonder had taken his own life something that occurred after both men had left
Spur. Poor judgments and acts of dishonesty by Van Tonder are recounted, but so is the initial warm relationship between the two men.
It is a notable and impressive achievement that Ambor narrates all this still very recent turbulence without malice or bitterness, concluding: “We were flip sides of the same coin, Pierre and I, for better or for worse, we were Spur people.”
REPUTATIONAL CRISIS
This book touches on the reputational crisis that hit the Spur group when a male customer was barred from one of its restaurants after a fierce row with a female customer over a scrap between their kids
an incident that some interpreted as racist.
As The New York Times put it yes, it made international news: “The boycott began in 2017 when Spur sided with a black woman who was in a confrontation with a white man at a franchise in Johannesburg. But the campaign against the chain promoted by SA’s most prominent groups that advocate white-minority rights
reflects something more profound than lingering bitterness over that dispute.
“It’s a demonstration of a strong, and what appears to be a growing, sense of resentment among many white South Africans a quarter of a century after they lost political power, and the outrages and brutalities of apartheid were ended.”
For your restaurant empire to be at the centre of a race row in modern-day SA is scary.
Ambor distances himself from responsibility for sparking the boycott, recalling that it was Van Tonder who took the decision, when contacted by a journalist, to bar the white man for life from Spur restaurants.
However, even disaster may bring positive results, and Ambor is shrewd enough to have recognised this. He writes: “We were all gobsmacked by the incident and its aftermath, and by the end of the year, as the boycott ran out of steam and we began to claw back our turnover, there were signs of a silver lining peeking through the clouds. Those franchisees who had been sitting on their backsides, letting their businesses coast along, suddenly got proactive, suddenly decided that costs had to be cut, that training had to be improved, that the customers had to be looked after 1,000 percent better. It was the wake-up and shake-up call.”
My own impressions of my local Spur franchise have not always been favourable —a takeaway order with missing elements, some terrible service, a veggie burger that was horrible. Shrieking children who drown out conversation, making the dinning more memorable than the dining.
But having read this book, I was inspired to critique a Spur takeaway meal for my supper.
I arrived at the place and was greeted by a “closed” sign on the door, but that turned out to be an unfortunate, careless mistake
so I entered the restaurant, to find a lukewarm atmosphere and a lukewarm welcome.
The food was prepared quite fast and was warm, if not hot, when I got it home.
I managed to finish half my cheeseburger, whose patty and bun were dry, and none of the other gunge inside it compensated for this. A pity because it didn’t taste too bad.
The chips and onion rings both tasted predominantly of grease, and a few of each were much, much more than enough.
The 600g rack of ribs was, in contrast, tender, quite tasty, with a good ratio of meat to bone. Not as tasty as Spur ribs once were, or is it nostalgia affecting my judgment?
The cost of the forgettable two dishes was an inflated R280.90 even though the burger had been on Mondaynight promotion.
As this book proves, the Spur concept was born of enthusiasm and vision, and developed with oodles of energy, hard work and perseverance. It may partly be the effect of Covid-19 disruption, but the inconsistent and drab Spur food of 2021 bears little resemblance to the fun, exuberant and enjoyable Spur dining I enjoyed decades ago.
A bit like its founder, Spur may be a bit over the hill. A relic of the 1960s that has lost its swing. A cowboy who really needs to hang up his spurs.
But do buy the book. It is much more enjoyable and digestible than the food, and you don’t need to adopt a yoga position to read it.