Hans, with boerewors roll in hand, on the right. Sporting vintage 80's sunglasses on the left is his cousin.
The following came per email from Hans Heydra:
Hi Jan. I thought I’d tell you the story on how the Saturday boerewors sellers stand that you now see at most shopping centres came to be.It all started in 1985 twenty-six years ago. Before this there were no boerewors stands at any shopping centres anywhere in the country. (Health and safety laws prohibited this.)
When I turned thirteen my father said it was time for me to earn my pocket money and so offered me a part time job in his butchery on Saturday mornings. My job was to braai kassegriller sausages on a cadac skottel. I would cut the sausages into portions and offer a small portion on a toothpick to each customer as a taster. This served two purposes, firstly the taster and secondly it would keep customers happy whilst having to wait for service as we used to run a queue out the front door of the butchery every Saturday.
Pretty soon customers were requesting boerewors portions for tasters and we were happy to oblige. After a few weeks of giving out free samples a customer asked me if I could make him a boerewors roll to which the answer was unfortunately no. I gave this some thought and approached my father with the idea of selling some boerewors rolls on Saturday mornings. His basically told me to get stuffed, after all what dose a pimple faced thirteen year old know about business and making money?
I was determined to give it a go and had a chat to Louis the guy who owned the drycleaner next to my father’s butchery. I asked Louis if I could keep some bread rolls and sauces in his office so that when a customer asked for boerewors roll I could sell him one. Louis the entrepreneur that he was saw some entrepreneurial spirit in me and agreed.
The next Saturday I went to the corner café and bought six rolls, serviettes, tomato sauce, mustard and chutney. I then stored my supplies in Louis’s Office and started promoting boerewors rolls at R3.00 each to the customers who were having samples. The first day I sold eight boerewors rolls and had R24.00 pluss the R30.00 wage my father was paying me in my pocket. Pretty soon I was selling thirty boerewors rolls a Saturday. And making R120.00 including my Saturday wage.
One day a customer told my father how lekker the boerewors roll was that he had just eaten. My father was acid when he found out.
- He was paying me to give sample tasters.
- I had gone behind his back.
- I was not paying him for the meat I took to make the boerewors rolls. (I couldn’t after all otherwise he would have known what I was up to.)
The next week I arrived to work to find that my father had invested in a gas griller, serving table, gazebo, braai equipment and informed me that if I was going to sell boerewors rolls I would have to do the job properly. (I’m sure Louis next door had something to do with convincing my father.) He agreed to pay me R120.00 per week. Pretty soon I was selling over seven hundred boerewors rolls on a Saturday morning, as there was no competition. I employed my cousin to help out and we were known as “The Braai Masters”. (We braaied every Saturday for the next four years until we were seventeen.)
Some of the Spars in the area started taking notice of our success and started their own boerewors stands. The rest as we say is history.
Do you have a great braai story? Email me.
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