That’s right! Drive-thru Spur and RocoMama’s restaurants are coming to a location near you in 2021.

We spoke with Spur Corporation this week, and they told us that the drive-thru feature is still in testing phase and that they “view this as an important category in the customer’s restaurant experience.” This gives us hope for drive-thrus countrywide soon!

They did confirm to Eat Out that the RocoMama’s (drive-thru) project is in Pretoria, but that’s all the information they would share for now.

RocoMama’s legendary burgers

With almost 300 restaurants across Southern Africa, Spur Steak ranches are an integral part of our dining culture. The restaurant chain has been operating since the late 60s and just the mention of a Cheddamelt burger brings family memories flooding back. What birthday would be complete without a visit to a Spur and a Chico the Clown ice cream?

It has been a difficult time for the group, which has left the Spur Corporation with a 40.2% decline in revenue this past year. Now the collection of restaurant brands that form the Spur Corporation ( Spur Steak Ranches, Spur Grill & Go, Panarottis Pizza Pasta, John Dory’s Fish Grill Sushi, RocoMama’s, The Hussar Grill, Casa Bella and Nikos Coalgrill Greek.) are ready to shake things up with two women at the helm: CEO Val Nichas and newly appointed CFO Cristina Teixeira.

Spur Corporations CEO Val Nichas.

Spur spokesperson, Moshe Apeni, chatted to us about the changes in Spur restaurants in 2021.

“We would like to reassure our customers that their safety, health and wellbeing are our top priority, and we continue to take every precaution across all our franchised restaurants to ensure the safety of our patrons and staff.”

With a strong focus on safer dining, it seems that the expanded delivery options and other ways of accessing a restaurant experience are a natural path of progression for the Spur Corporation.

Apeni assures us that the following health and safety measures are in place:

• Their franchised restaurant employees are taking precautionary measures when interacting with patrons and when preparing food. They also have sanitation stations in all restaurants and all staff must wash their hands every thirty minutes.
• They encourage customers to take advantage of the available sanitary stations.
• All of the menus, tables and furniture are sanitised after every sitting. All menus will be available online so the customer can view them on their own devices if they so choose.
• Cutlery is continually washed at a high heat with a specific cutlery sanitiser.

• All restaurant employees have been issued with the required PPE.
• Daily temperature and symptom checks are in place for all restaurant employees.
• Restaurants have been reconfigured to facilitate social distancing of at least 1.5 meters between each table. They have also implemented measures to safely accommodate third-party delivery drivers.
• Workstations are disinfected, and sanitiser, soap and clean water are available for all employees to wash their hands regularly.
• Customers must wear masks and will be asked to complete a screening questionnaire upon entry. Patrons also must wear masks at all times except when they are eating and drinking.
• Their credit card machines are sanitised and, where available, they encourage digital payments such as Snapscan, Zapper or MasterPass.

Would you try a Spur drive-thru? We think it would be an exciting format, but we’ll always love the brown bench seating and sauce caddies at our local Spur sit-down restaurant.