South African burger chain Steers to open first UK restaurant in Clapham

20 June 2013 by
South African burger chain Steers to open first UK restaurant in Clapham

The South African burger brand Steers is to open its first UK restaurant in London's Clapham this July.

Steers is owned by Famous Brands (which also owns Wimpy UK), and has 505 sites in South Africa, as well as 43 additional sites across Africa.

The brand was founded in the 1960s and serves flame-grilled beefburgers and handmade chips.

Like the UK version of Wimpy, Steers will run on a franchise model.

Aside from South African menu options such as the King Steer Burger and the Rave Burger, Steers will also serve the new Steers flame-grilled peri peri chicken burger in the UK. No price information is available as yet.

Famous Brands chief executive Kevin Hedderwick said: "We've always considered exporting Steers to the UK, fuelled by the constant requests from many expatriates living in London craving a taste of home. Having looked at the market we believe that the quality, freshness and taste of our flame-grilled products will create as much excitement and recognition in the UK as in South Africa."

The Clapham restaurant is due to open the first week of July, 2013.

Hedderwick said that Famous Brands had plans for more Steers franchises to open in the UK but that the company was focused on the Clapham site for the time being.

When asked about the state of the UK Wimpy estate and whether or not some may end up being converted to Steers he said: "We are happy with our Wimpy business in the UK and have gotten the estate to one whereby we have a strong and solid base of franchise partners with whom we plan to take the brand forward . We recently opened two new Wimpy restaurants and there are signs of the brand starting to gain traction although what we cannot influence or change is the depressed UK economy.

"If working with our Wimpy franchise partners we believe there is a case for an existing Wimpy to convert to Steers we will consider it but our launch of Steers into the UK is not a strategy whereby we plan to abandon any of our existing Wimpy partners and or sites."

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