Another of Allen’s issues was that he could get out of the whole deal only before he had signed a lease, but after he signed he was locked in. “Then I asked for assistance, but they didn’t help.”
Max left for Cape Town in February 1967 to finish his final year at the University of Cape Town and complete his articles with Hugh Nathan, who eventually became Spur’s accountant. He rented a dilapidated cottage in Mowbray (close to Newlands and the university) and used public transport. He remembers that Allen came to Cape Town shortly thereafter and stayed for a short time while they did some work. Max supervised the end of the construction of the restaurant, and when Allen flew back to Johannesburg he left Max his Mini. He didn’t return for many months.
Allen reiterates that Max came in at the end only, in April 1967. “I was fanatical; I had pride in what I had achieved on my own,” he says. He says he left in May of that year to go and earn money in Johannesburg, and returned in August.
The business was due to open in October and when Allen came back for good, the two of them and friends of Allen’s, Tommy McClelland and his wife Lynn, “got the place together”, says Max. Stanley Adelson, who used to wait on tables with them at Seven Steer, was to help them as a casual waiter.
For Allen the worst was that the vent didn’t work on the test night before the official opening and filled the whole restaurant with smoke, “because we had not been given the plans. I was going nuts.”
Max says they hired all the staff and sent a Mrs Ross to Johannesburg to be trained at Seven Steer.
Allen complains bitterly that Cape Town staff were very unreliable compared with those in Johannesburg because of the “dop” system (where farmers traditionally paid their workers in part with alcohol). And because they couldn’t afford a kombi, he had to take the last eight staff members home in two shifts at 2am after the majority had left on the last bus at 11.15pm.
Max says the staff issue didn’t bother him too much as he could do anything they could, and could easily train or stand in for staff himself. He had spent a lot of time in the kitchen at Seven Steer learning how to prepare meat, bake the apple pie and cheese cake and make the fruit juices. Allen was also taught how to cut the meat and bake, but he says he learnt how to make only some of the fruit juices from the Halamandres family and Alfonso Calbacho, of Milky Lane, also taught him how to make some.
John Halamandres remembers that a problem arose regarding transporting the sauces from Seven Steer to Cape Town. “Back then logistics were much more complicated than today; railways and aeroplanes were expensive options, and to preserve the sauces was a problem.” He says for this reason they gave Allen the sauce recipes, “which, in hindsight, was unfortunate”.
But Allen says he had had the recipes long before that, and the base materials available in Cape Town tasted different from those that were bought from a company called Carmel in Johannesburg. They had to refine and modify the recipes anyway. “It was nobody’s fault, it was just the circumstances,” says Max. Allen got the help of a food chemist and cook, Lea Melmed, to develop the sauces. “It was myself, Leah Melmed and my wife, Reina, who initiated the Spur sauces, which are still in use today. We ended up with a better salad dressing because we created it ourselves,” says Allen.
Their franchise agreement didn’t preclude them from adding items to George’s menu either. Both Allen and John recall that Allen named a new drink after John because he was usually the one responsible for the drinks. It was known as the John Lee Special (John’s full name is John Lee). “For years you could find the John Lee Special on the Spur menu, which was a Coke with lemon juice,” says John.
As for choosing a name for the restaurant, John and Max seem to remember the process similarly.
John says Allen and Max wanted to call the restaurant Steers, but there was already a furniture removal company called Steer & Company in Cape Town. “Allen then reverted to the original name of our restaurant in Rosebank, the Golden Spur, and my father and brother agreed to the name.”
Max confirms they wanted to use a name with Steer included, but “it just so happens that Steer is a very common last name in Cape Town. With so many businesses with Steer in the name, from transport to real estate, choosing the name Golden Spur made sense, as it was a very well-known restaurant in South Africa and still, theoretically, part of the family.”
Allen insists this was not the case. There was already a Black Steer restaurant in Pinelands in Cape Town as George never registered the brand name Black Steer. And if he did, Allen didn’t know about it. He says he bought the name Golden Spur from a coffee company.
Responding to Allen’s claim that he got no help in setting up his steakhouse, Barbara Halamandres says: “Allen certainly had help in Newlands. It was the first outlet in Cape Town so there was no way he had no help. I was there myself.”
But Max says maybe Barbara was there in her capacity as a very good friend, because he can remember him and Allen remarking that it was a shame that nobody from the family came down for the opening. “But there was already trouble brewing, so maybe it was for the better,” he says.
Whatever the case, the Golden Spur was a great success and that particular Spur still exists today.
John remembers that he and his brother Georgie went to Cape Town to help at the second restaurant during the very busy December holidays. John was turning 15 and still at school. “I was pouring drinks,” he says.
The second Cape Town restaurant opened in Main Road in Sea Point on 4 January 1968. Allen claims the Halamandres brothers arrived in Cape Town only the day before.
“They called it Seven Spur because of the Seven Steer name, the mother of all the steakhouses. The restaurant was doing okay, but it wasn’t a huge success,” says John. “Max’s restaurant wasn’t profitable,” agrees Allen.
Max says Golden Spur in Newlands did extremely well from the moment they opened, “but Sea Point was the toughie – the holiday season only lasted five weeks and then there was the miserable winter”.
John’s cousin Peter Caradas remembers going to Cape Town to help Max and Allen. “Allen Ambor was a good businessman,” he reflects.
Stanley was a right-hand man and he stayed for about two years before bigger things in the industry called him back north.
Max says while setting up Newlands, he and Allen signed a lease for the Sea Point restaurant, even though the franchise agreement precluded it. “But Johannesburg didn’t object.” Again, Allen says he signed the lease, Max never did.
Whatever the case, Georgie had a share in the second restaurant.
Allen found it a pity that Arthur Balaskas, who was going to run all franchises, was on his way out of the country. Between the initial talks with Arthur two and a half years before and the openings in Cape Town, he decided to bow out. As Max drily puts it: “He had gone all hippy on us and was dropping out of the real world.” Arthur popped in on his way to Spain to say hello, though, Allen remembers.
Keith Madders, who shared a house with Allen and Max at the time, and who later became friends with Arthur when he had moved to London, remembers that Arthur once told him that he was embarrassed that they couldn’t provide Allen with more support from Johannesburg before he left for Spain. “If Arthur had stayed, he and Allen would have been a formidable team,” says Keith, today deputy chairman of Spur.
Because of the limited help they received with the Newlands restaurant, Allen and Max weren’t happy about paying franchise fees. The franchise fee dispute gave birth to a different deal in Sea Point. “We gave them equity and I was an equal owner with Allen in the second restaurant,” says Max.
George was the initiator and brains of the business in his restaurants, says Allen. “I got on well with him and used to pop in at his office in Johannesburg to say hello.” He admits that George was brilliant at retail, but says it is very important to remember that the Halamandres family didn’t know how to franchise. “They tried to implement it, but they didn’t know what it took to implement or look