South Africans find a home in Texas
A restaurant in Winnsboro serves the traditional menu items like steaks, seafood and smoked chicken but also serves some South African dishes. Jackie and Phillip Strydom have the restaurant called Liefie (Lee-fee) a popular Afrikaans word meaning sweetheart. They came to the US in 1999 after running a successful real estate business in Johannesburg, a city with a high crime rate. The Re-max Company invited them to Dallas for training with the idea of going back and opening Re-max offices in South Africa. They considered the offer. “We were young and ambitious and our kids were small so we thought it was a wonderful opportunity,” says Jackie.
They got to the US after a 21-hour flight. “We landed in New York with two babies and eight suitcases and we were really tired. We found out the plane tickets to Dallas were eight hundred dollars apiece. And if you convert that into South African money, that’s a lot of money. We took the Greyhound bus to Dallas and enjoyed the trip because it gave us a chance to rest and see the countryside. It was a beautiful ride.”
Jackie says in Dallas, they started a real estate business and after a few years the kids became thoroughly Texanized and spoke English fluently. “We just couldn’t stand the thought of taking them back.” At a South African Dutch oven cooking festival in 2009 they met a man with South African
roots who invited the family to his farm near Winnsboro. “My kids had such a good time on the farm and in the little town. On the way back to Dallas my 15 year-old daughter said, ‘Mama, you know we’re gonna have to move there.’ I told her I would love to but it’s too far from Dallas where we make a living. She said ‘Mama we just have to follow our hearts and God will provide.’”
They did move to Winnsboro in 2010, bought a home and a downtown building that they turned into a small mall. They set up a real estate office in the front of the building. “We went to Canton and solicited successful vendors with funky apparel, furniture and home décor to rent space in the mall,” says Jackie. “Eventually we started serving wine and cheese plates. That just sort of morphed into the restaurant. We didn’t plan to open a restaurant, it just happened. We added a kitchen and patio and Phillip got out his smoker and started smoking chickens. It’s one of our best menu items. Phillip manages the cooking and our son Jet helps.” They opened the restaurant in 2012 and don’t plan to go back to South Africa. “What we do now is get enough money together and send it over to our friends and family. They come here and we all go places we have not been.”
Liefie has been called the best restaurant in East Texas. It seats 44 inside and 44 outside. Musicians entertain on weekends. It’s open Thursday thru Saturday from 11 AM to 9 PM. Reservations are recommended. (903 347-1111)
Jackie grew up in the Kalahari Desert where her mother had a large general store. In college, she waited tables. She and Phillip always liked the rural areas, preferring them over big cities. “Maybe God wants us here.”