Restaurant Brokers Wine and Dine in South Africa

As restaurant brokers, we know that knowledge is key in selling restaurants.  On our recent trip to South Africa, we experienced the dining and culture first hand. 

Here is a photo of a lovely ostrich who looks quite surprised to see these Atlanta restaurant brokers  invade his realm in nature. 

For lunch, Eric enjoys one of the local delicacies – an ostrich burger!  We think this bird would have been even more surprised to see us if he thought he would end up on the plate of these visitors! 

Since no trip would be complete without an understanding of the South African wine country, the restaurant  brokers (in the name of research!) also spent time visiting the wineries and vineyards.   South Africa was originally settled by the Dutch but was also home to a large French Huguenot influx who were kind enough to recognize that the conditions and soil were conducive to wine making learned in their native France.  From that start, South Africa has developed into one of the top ten producers of wine in the world and an award winning selection that is locally grown, harvested and bottled for export.  The United Kingdom is the largest importer of South African wines with the United States in second place.

The process of wine making is very similar to what these restaurant brokers have seen in the West with the exception of the bottling.  Since automation is quite costly in South Africa, the wineries employ the use of a traveling or portable bottling machine.  About the size of a small U.S. trailer, these roll up to the wineries and amazingly will bottle up to 20,000 bottles a day.  The restaurant brokers weren’t able to see this in action but found it fascinating that the wineries are able to locally outsource this part of their business in order to keep costs under control and produce their very well priced wines.

Another interesting fact that these American restaurant brokers learned in their travels is that all the oak barrels for curing the wine are imported.  An early settler brought oak to the continent but much to their dismay, learned that the sunshine and conditions in Africa caused the oak trees to grow much faster than in the West.  That makes the wood quite porous.  Early wine makers were sad to learn that their efforts would “leak” through the barrel.  Today, all barrels are imported to South Africa.  A country that never wastes anything, once the barrels have served about six season of wine making, they are converted into furniture, crafts, and other decorative element.

One of the most interesting additions to our list of favorites while traveling in South Africa was pinotage wine.   Pinotage is  red grape wine created in South Africa where it was introduced through the hybrid of a pinot grape and hermitage grape, creating the name.  This deep garnet colored wine is lighter and less spicy than traditional reds and every winery that featured this strain served a delightful glass.

All in all, the restaurant brokers first trip to South Africa has begun as a huge success, with unique restaurant, dining and drinking experiences.  We will continue to blog about our travels over the course of our trip.  In our next article, we’ll discuss restaurants for sale and the opportunity to learn unique insights from other cultures when it comes to décor, architecture and design.  We are seeing many delightful restaurants and sights along the way.  Who knows, maybe a We Sell Restaurants “South Africa” office is in the making.  We’re sure that with all these restaurants, there are restaurant brokers in waiting – ready to take our franchise to this new continent.