From Corner Café to JSE Giant: The Famous Brands Story

By Carié Maas

Famous Brands Ltd, as it is known today, started as a single Steers restaurant in the early 1960s, and now comprises more than 2100 restaurants across a portfolio of 20 brands, as well as extremely lucrative logistics, manufacturing and retail components.

George Halamandres's family came to South Africa from Greece with practically nothing but big ideas. The company they founded grew, restaurant by restaurant, eventually achieving unimagined success on a national and international scale.

From Corner Café to JSE Giant chronicles the birth and rebirth of some of South Africa's best known brands, and tells the story of the people who inspired and managed them.

These brands include:

Steers · Wimpy · Debonairs Pizza · FishAways · tashas · Europa · Giramundo · KEG · McGinty's · Milky Lane · House of Coffees · Mugg & Bean · Turn 'n Tender · Vovo Telo · Fego Caffé · Trufruit · The Brewers Guild · Brazilian Café · Juicy Lucy · The Bread Basket · Aqua Monte · Baltimore

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tafelberg
• Release date: Aug 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9780624056799

Carié Maas

Carie Maas is the author of the runaway bestseller of 2011, Jannie Mouton: and then they fired me. She has built up an impressive career in financial journalism, working at some of South Africa's most prestigious publications as a financial and travel writer. In 2012, she resigned to focus on writing full time, resulting in From Corner Café to JSE Giant and a recently published novel, Koljander. Carie divides her time between her home in Johannesburg and her parents in Mpumalanga.