Steakhouse chain founder serves up tricks of trade in memoir

YOUNG people seeking to become entrepreneurs need to find something they really enjoy – and work extra hard to achieve their goals.

Allen Ambor, who founded the Spur group on modest capital and built his empire in a hands-on, thinking-outof-the-box way, advises: “Don’t give up easily.”

Now 80, teaching Iyengar yoga on Zoom from his Cape Town home, Ambor has published a memoir, A Taste for Life: How the Spur Legend was Born.

Stressing the importance of determination, he recalled how, in the 1960s, he had found it difficult to find premises for the steakhouse he dreamed of opening.

Then, when he was at his wits’ end, an estate agent showed him a place in Newlands. “It was incredible timing,” Ambor recalled.“I was ready to give up and go home to Joburg and apply for yet another soul-destroying job.”

The building’s owners were “unfazed that their tenant was a lad in his early 20s”. And so, the Golden Spur was born.

Years of scrubbing floors, shuttling staff home in two shifts in his Mini late at night, and opening up early in the morning, followed. He steered waiters from the culture of asking diners “is everything okay” to proactively offering things like another serving of chips. And making sure patrons would come back.

Ambor advised people who’ve reached business heights: “Egos drive them and they start to lose millions when they think common sense is only for younger people. “It’s important not to be scared to show that you don’t know. Ask questions. Be able to do something (yourself) rather than be dependent on people who might let you down.”

Ambor added: “I’m good at assessing people.” He added he was often too soft, keeping people he shouldn’t have kept.

He faced challenges, from handling a race incident at a Steak Ranch, a falling out with a fellow senior executive, and a fire at his Sea Point restaurant, Seven Spur. “I repaired it. I didn’t wait for the insurance brokers to send assessors.”

Ambor, who calls himself “manic”, said he learnt about hard work from his parents, who fled Nazi Germany and came to South Africa, working hard and starting from scratch.

by Allen Ambor is published by Tafelberg.