We tried to save a Soweto burger business... and this happened

When I first wrote about And Fries, the future looked brutally uncertain.

A driver had crashed into its Mofolo South store and fled, leaving a young township business with serious damage and a repair bill that would have seen many giving up.

This isn’t a giant franchise with a legal department, a national maintenance team and enough money to absorb a few difficult months. It is a proudly Sowetan business built carefully, creatively and brick by brick by Lwazi Madonsela and his team.

I asked South Africa to help.

And South Africa did.

The story we shared travelled far beyond the people who already knew And Fries. Thousands of people shared it, liked it, commented, tagged companies and, most importantly, donated real money.

We have all seen stories go viral. We watch, feel something, leave a heart emoji and move on to the next thing. This time, people opened their banking apps. They sent what they could. They showed a young entrepreneur that the country had not forgotten him.

The support gave Lwazi and his team more than money. It gave them momentum and the will to carry on.

Rather than waiting for the entire store to be repaired, they got the food truck going and created a pop-up outside the damaged premises. The first one sold out.

Friends arrived to DJ. The staff got back to work between the rubble, repairs and construction materials. Burgers were being assembled metres away from the physical evidence of everything that had happened.

I went back for the next pop-up because I needed to see it for myself.

There were young South Africans moving with purpose, taking orders, working the fryers, packing food and making the brioche buns by hand. Behind them, the rebuilding continued. In front of them, customers were arriving to spend their money and support a local business.

It didn’t feel like a fundraiser pretending to be a restaurant.

It felt like a restaurant refusing to disappear.

And the food is still excellent

The menu is small, focused and full of the kind of food that made And Fries worth fighting for in the first place.

The Aioli Burger comes on that soft, buttery, handmade brioche bun with deeply seasoned fried chicken, cheese, creamy coleslaw, house pickles and signature aioli. The chicken still has that proper crunch when you bite into it, while the slaw and pickles bring enough freshness and acidity to stop the whole thing from becoming too heavy.

For a little more heat, the Spicy Ranch Burger brings together hot-honey fried chicken, cheese, iceberg lettuce, pickles and ranch sauce. It is sweet, spicy, creamy and messy in exactly the way a fried chicken burger should be.

Then there is the Mac & Cheese Burger: sticky Asian-dipped chicken, macaroni and cheese and purple cabbage, all packed into a brioche bun and served with fries. It is excessive, ambitious and completely unapologetic.

This is bigger than rebuilding a shop

I had the opportunity to speak properly with Lwazi during the pop-up.

He is smart, switched on, astute and remarkably aware of the reality around him. He doesn’t romanticise entrepreneurship. He understands the pressure of keeping people employed, paying suppliers, managing costs and trying to build something excellent in an environment that can be unforgiving to small businesses.

He is also a passionate creative.

He doesn’t only want to reopen a takeaway. He wants to build a proudly Sowetan brand that can compete anywhere. He wants to create jobs, contribute to the local economy and show what is possible when township businesses are given a genuine opportunity to grow.

That ambition was visible everywhere.

It was in the packaging, the food truck, the handmade buns, the staff working through the disruption and the people choosing to spend their Saturday supporting the business.

But this story is not finished.

As the team has begun understanding the true extent of the work required, it has become clear that the amount needed to rebuild is even higher than initially realised.

The first wave of support has helped enormously. It gave them the ability to move, trade and begin again.

It has not completed the job.

Now is not the time to move on

The internet moves quickly.

A story trends, people care deeply for a few days, and then another story takes its place. But the repair costs do not disappear when the video stops appearing on people’s feeds.

This is not the moment to take our foot off the gas. This is the moment to push harder and prove that South Africans can do more than create a beautiful viral moment. We can help turn that moment into a permanently reopened business.

Buy a burger at the next pop-up. Book And Fries for a catering job. Keep sharing the story. Donate what you can.

Companies that can offer building materials, equipment, labour, repairs, signage or practical business assistance should get involved. And businesses looking for catering should consider putting real work through the hands of this team.

We often say we want township economies to grow.

Here is a township business with an excellent product, an ambitious founder, committed staff, loyal customers and the determination to keep cooking in the middle of a construction site.

It does not need another motivational quote.

It needs customers, capital and practical support.

South Africa has already done something incredible. People saw a young business in trouble and decided it mattered.

Now we need to do something even more important: stay.

I went back to find out whether hope had survived the crash. It had. It was sizzling in hot oil, stacked onto handmade brioche and handed to customers beside a building site.

But hope alone will not rebuild And Fries.

Let’s finish the job.

How to support And Fries

Capitec Bank
Account name: ANDFRIES
Account type: Entrepreneur Account
Account number: 2518230137
Branch code: 470010

Donors should confirm the recipient details before completing a payment.

This article highlights a local business facing significant challenges and includes information on how readers can support its recovery. Any donations or purchases are entirely voluntary. Time Out South Africa is not affiliated with, does not manage and does not receive any financial benefit from the fundraising initiative.

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