A larger-than-life man in everyone else’s lunchtime
RECORDS tumbled at the 29th Nedbank Cape Winemakers Guild Auction last week with sales reaching R8.4-million, a coup for the independent winemakers. Last year the total was R5.4-million.
For the 12th year running, Alan Pick of the Butcher Shop & Grill and The Grillhouse was the biggest single buyer of wine.
Pick is something of a local legend on the eating scene.
The Butcher Shop & Grill on Sandton Square and The Grillhouse in Rosebank are arguably the most established whitecloth steakhouses in Johannesburg, and are national institutions in their own right.
Their tables attract highprofile, deep-pocketed corporate diners as both The Butcher Shop and The Grillhouse head for 20-year tenures, which is an achievement in a fickle industry.
Pick has a big personality and barks orders and requests to those around him.
He talks straight, doesn’t selfedit and is certainly no wilting violet.
Pick is annoyed that the winemakers did not get the accolades they deserved in the recent auction. He spent R1.4million (including VAT) on wine for the restaurant and on behalf of his close customers.
He talks big numbers. The Butcher Shop sells 600 bottles of wine a day, and buys three tons of fillet a week.
He insists on taking me on a trip into his walk-in fridge, although I manage only one step in. Four-and-a-half tons of carcasses are hanging in a fridge that could be a scene from a movie set. Meat is in Pick’s DNA. His parents ran a butchery in Cape Town’s Kalk Bay, and at one time the family had seven butchers in the fold.
His children are involved. His son Dani is going to Cape Town to run a Butcher Shop that is due to open in Mouille Point in April next year.
His daughters run the doors, though they have day jobs in architecture and law.
Pick claims to be the biggest customer of the top 20 wine estates in South Africa. Much of the wine he buys goes straight to overseas buyers.
The business spans 1 400m². It includes a butchery, cellars and seating for between 460 and 500 people.
“You either love it or hate it,” says Pick.
“Some people swear by the Butcher Shop, some people find it impersonal. We’re not flexible. We cannot be flexible. We cannot change this and that.
We will drop 30% turnover on a public holiday
This is how we do it … you concentrate on the people you can please.”
Pick says the place is fully booked almost every night.
The weakest night is Saturday because the business-fraternity customers are taking a break. Public holidays are the biggest problems.
“Nobody comes to Joburg on a short week. That kills us. A public holiday costs me a week of trading. We will drop 30% turnover on a public holiday, it doesn’t matter what day it is.”
They have three “private” dining rooms. “We have certain customers who sit at certain tables. We have a bun fight here you can’t believe.”
Recently, a big contingent from Saudi Arabia came to dine. Why? “Who knows? Who asks?”
The Butcher Shop has operations under licence in the Middle East with three in Dubai, one in Qatar, one in Bahrain, one in Saudi Arabia and one due to open in Lebanon.
Because South African meat is not allowed in Dubai, they get it from the US.
They are looking at Africa as a source of meat but Pick is nervous about the supply chain.
“We were invited to be up in Kenya this week to look at potential premises in the centre where the bombing took place recently.”
The Sandton restaurant has spent R2-million on placing cameras in every corner and staff make sure things don’t get out of hand. Meat and wine can make a temperamental combination. The Butcher Shop is Pick’s 32nd restaurant in 44 years. He started Late Night Al’s in Hillbrow and was involved in The Grillhouse in Rosebank. At one point he sold out to the Don Group as part of a listed entity, but couldn’t handle the corporate strictures.
He ignores critics who say Cape Town does not have the kind of clientele to support the sort of top-end large restaurant he is putting together.
So has the Butcher Shop been approached by possible buyers?
“You don’t understand, they’re queuing up. I’m not interested in selling,” says Pick.
“The business continues, we run a very tight ship.”
With that he goes to chat to someone from an airline who’s looking for certain cuts of meat.
Part of the banter is an anecdote involving airline crew and topless air hostesses at the restaurant. No doubt, there are many more such stories …
ýThe Grillhouse in Rosebank was this week named as one of the top 15 steakhouses in the world, and the best in Johannesburg — “which is actually to say the best steakhouse in the whole of Africa”, said Conde Nast Traveler. “It’s a slick operation, but has soul.” The business premises cover 2 000m², including Katzy’s and Meat etc.