Tashas, the restaurant brand that’s been an outlier success on the local food industry, is looking to expand beyond Dubai — including into the formidable UK market.
Surprisingly, perhaps, there’s no grand master plan. As founder Natasha Sideris explains in an interview with the FM, the idea is simply to open new outlets, serve good food in a beautiful space and give good service.
"And if people love it, we open more."
She says people strategise in boardrooms and throw around big numbers, but her view is that you need to start intuitively: open one and see if it works. "Do what you do," she says.
Still, there’s no doubt that Sideris wants tashas to evolve into an international business. She moved to Dubai three years ago to expand the brand in the emirate, having opened the first tashas there six years ago.
For the past few months, she’s been in SA during the lockdown. "It’s been a godsend because there’s so much to do," she says.
Not many people know it, but the expansion into the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has already been a success: there are now six operations in the Gulf state. They include tashas, the Flamingo Room (inspired by styles and colours from Miami in the 1970s) and an upmarket Greek dining restaurant named Avli. A new brand, Nala by tashas — a smaller, upmarket quick food concept — will also be launched in the next few months.
The long-term goal is to roll out the Nala concept in big cities with high-volume traffic like London, Paris and other European cities.
"Tashas are amazing but they take long to build, their designs are intricate and they need a big workforce," says Sideris. "I think there’s a gap in the market where there’s a tashas quality meal, food that’s made to order, with the speed of fast food."
Nala will look nothing like tashas, even if Sideris says there’s a golden thread linking both. Rather, Nala aims to be the "quick service restaurant of the future, with the heart and soul of Africa". The menu will have about 15 dishes, with a focus on salads and grilled food with rubs and spices. It will have a retail offering.
Sideris runs the business with her brother Savva and a relatively small top team, given the size of the business. "Sixteen years later, we’ve been able to maintain standards but still be the antifranchise franchise."
Taking back full control
Part of the makeover is that tashas is now emerging from JSE-listed food group Famous Brands, which bought 51% of the group 12 years ago for R10m. Last August, the Sideris family bought back that stake.
Sideris says the discussion about buying back control began about seven or eight years ago. At about the same time, she’d been approached to expand the brand into the US, the UK, Australia and the UAE.
Sideris was reluctant; the UK was competitive with high barriers to entry, and the US and Australia were not a good idea because of the time difference and because she’s "a control freak".
Instead, she chose the UAE as the first market to open internationally, and it’s been a good fit. "In so many ways, the culture is similar to SA. It’s a driving culture, a mall culture. We’re not a walking culture.
"I’m Greek [and] the Arabic culture and the Greek culture are similar. It’s about being hospitable, there’s an abundance of everything. And it’s the same time zone."
At least 25%-30% of the staff of each restaurant in Dubai are South Africans who’ve been flown over to work there. In some places, up to half are South Africans.
Sideris is looking for new sites on foreign turfs — but they need to be close to a city centre and a hub with a residential clientele.
"We need the housewives, we need the ladies who lunch, we need people who are picking up their kids from school and coming to have a bite to eat. We need the business people as well," she says.
Usually, she prefers to partner with someone who isn’t in the food business. "That’s going to make for a good partnership, because they’re not going to come [and] tell me they don’t like my tables and chairs or that I’ve hired too many waiters or too few, or that I’m not making my eggs properly."
Her partners in the UAE also help her negotiate leases and deal with visas. The food, staffing and design remain the remit of Sideris’s team, however.
Later this year, the Tashas Group’s new offices will open in the trendy Alserkal district of Dubai, and it’ll include an academy and training centre.
SA still a priority
But if it seems like the focus is entirely international and there’s less interest in the SA business, this would be wrong.
Sideris says a number of local tashas are being spruced up and renovated to make sure they remain relevant. "Hyde Park is going to be a full-on food emporium; we’re changing the entire look," she says.
In SA, the group is going through a shift on many levels. It is moving into new head office premises next month at Beechwood, the three-and-a-half acre landscaped environment in Hyde Park run by Susan Greig.
(Sideris also works closely with Nicky and Billy Greig, who started a retail store named Collective, which sells contemporary African design goods from within the tashas Flamingo Room in the Jumeirah Al Naseem hotel in Dubai.)
The move to Beechwood is important for Sideris, who says she’ll be using it to develop products from the site. "I wanted to take an office that wasn’t corporate. I want to go back to a space that’s creative, go back to nature."
The kitchen at Beechwood will be used for all product development, and as a training centre. "I want staff, and even customers if they want to, to come and say hi — to pop in, have a coffee."
It’s probably the right time to reassert tasha’s anticorporate ethic, having divorced from Famous Brands. Until recently, its SA office was based in Famous Brands’ headquarters in Midrand.
Nonetheless, Sideris says the partnership with Famous Brands was a positive one.
"It brought a lot of knowledge that I didn’t have. I learnt a lot from them in terms of corporate governance, business plans, budgets and process."
Famous Brands never became involved in any aspect of tasha’s, but did add to Sideris’s business acumen. "Restaurateurs can go wrong. You need a strong business background and Famous Brands brought that to us."
Sideris says buying back control and leaving Famous Brands wasn’t easy. "It was an emotional move because I’d become so close to Darren [Hele, the CEO] and I had such an amazing relationship with Kevin [Hedderwick]".
But as an independent outfit again, it puts Sideris back in control of her own destiny.
Where it all started
The tashas story began 16 years ago, when Natasha Sideris opened her first restaurant in Atholl Square, near Sandton. There was no advertising, but word of mouth meant the restaurant was busy pretty much from the outset.
Considering that it was the original venue, it’s somewhat sentimental for Sideris that tashas had to close that branch last year as the building was going to be knocked down.
"Atholl [was] my little baby," says Sideris. "I wept when we closed."
But Sideris plans to open a branch there again in 2023, once the building is rebuilt. Broll Property will be managing the building on behalf of the Public Investment Corp.
Sideris says she never wanted to go into the restaurant business. Her father worked in his restaurants — Squires Loft, the Highwayman and the Fishmonger — and she hardly saw him because he was so busy.
Instead, she studied at Wits University, intent on becoming a psychologist. But needing extra money, she worked in the restaurants — and got hooked. The attraction of the adrenaline, the multi-tasking and the people meant the studying went out the window.
"When I started tashas I never imagined it would be what it is today. We plan global expansion; we have 24 restaurants."
For all those restaurants, she uses the same design team: Sydney-based SA husband-and-wife team Neydine Bak and Dewald Strewig of architecture and interior studio Verhaal.
Sideris says they’re versatile, easily able to shift from natural to minimalist and uber-glamorous styles.
So how does she know if a new concept has worked?
"It needs to make financial sense, and people need to fall in love with it and like it, creating a bit of hype," she says.
She says her restaurants have always had a nonnegotiable formula. "We buy only the best-quality ingredients, we focus heavily on training, interiors are a big part of who we are and we’re authentic."
The Covid factor
Natasha Sideris was always a "delivery snob". tashas had never done takeaways before Covid hit — and had never wanted to either.
"I hated it. But we had to do it — we had to bring in some income and keep our staff employed."
Today, a year into the pandemic, takeaway orders account for a significant amount of business. The group is now planning to buy 100% biodegradable packaging.
But Covid also meant the menu had to shrink. Whereas the restaurants would previously offer 50 to 60 items, tashas now has a reduced menu of 35 items. The idea is to help franchisees get back on their feet with less stock, and fewer staff.
The mantra changed to "sophisticated simplicity". For example, where restaurants used to offer, say, seven or eight cakes, there are now three.
Negotiating with landlords has also been tricky. Some charged no rent while the restaurants were closed, some offered a small reduction, and some provided rental relief until February this year.
Says Sideris: "My advice to restaurateurs is, don’t ever fight with your landlord. You’re in partnership with them. There will come a time when they need you, and when you need your landlord."
They will continue to add to the menu — in March they added five new items — but won’t go back to 60 items. She expects to hit pre-Covid levels in about a year.
The Dubai business, meanwhile, has grown compared to last year. It opened its economy and eased travel restrictions — which led to a flood of visitors from Israel and the UK. At the same time, Dubai’s own residents weren’t allowed to travel, which meant that spending power stayed in the local system.
Cracking the bar beat
The tashas group opened the Galaxy Bar in Dubai two years ago — and it’s already ranked 67 in the World’s 50 Best Bars awards.
It was also named the "Campari One to Watch" by the same organisation.
The bar is designed to replicate Natasha Sideris’s "spiritual home of Athens". This includes a terrazzo floor, heavy velvet drapes, a marble backbar and a starry ceiling "designed to evoke the Athenian night sky", it says on its website.
The late-night venue is reservation only and seats about 50 people. The policy says: "No effort — no entry! We don’t allow flip-flops, sandals, shorts or sportswear."
The jetsetter lifestyle
For a sense of how tashas has created global jetsetters of its staff, consider Precious Dube, who has been on the payroll for 17 years.
Dube started as a waitress at Nino’s Bedfordview (which later became tashas) in 2004. She went on to be a manager, and is now general manager at tashas in the Galleria Mall in Dubai — the first tashas to open abroad.
Dube has been living in Dubai for seven years, and says that at first she found the culture and climate challenging. Now, she says, she "absolutely loves it".
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.