26/06/2025
Hello! I was fortunate enough to spend an afternoon with the owner of San Fernando, Mr Escola Fernando. I went in to talk Diginu delivery platform; when our conversation took a different direction. I am Taej, owner and founder of Taej Mahal strategies. I have to be honest I love food. Everything about it: the ingredients, the preparation, the tastes. The sheer deliciousness, where Maslow’s basic need becomes self-actualization. My first question to any restaurateur is, are you ready to launch, digitise or franchise your Brand? I believe from our conversation, excellence like this is ripe for expansion.
This week's featured restaurants is San Fernando's Grillhouse & Woodfired Pizzeria - Grillhouse & Woodfired Pizzeria, located Sunridge Village in Port Elizabeth, Gqeberha.
Fernando Manuel Monteiro Escola, is a brilliant case study of a restaurant owner that took critical learnings from a franchise network and used that to build his own robust business model, that is a flagship of excellence in our charming little city and is at a standard that would be in a perfect position to scale up and develop a franchise network of its own, in my opinion. Hopefully, I've planted some seeds.
The vision of San Fernando’s Grillhouse & Woodfired Pizzeria, with their passionate dedication to taste, innovation and excellence, is to be the first choice for customers to enjoy dining on the best grills, ribs, steaks, prawns, other seafood, pizzas and pastas, including ordering take-out and delivery. The journey began in Port Elizabeth in August 1994, when they opened Cafe Dulce their first restaurant/coffee shop in the Greenacres Shopping Centre, Port Elizabeth and realized their passion for the hospitality industry and customer service. They received consecutive awards proving their standard of excellence. At the end of January 1998, after three and a half years of great success they sold Cafe Dulce to move on to greater ventures. After 16 months of research, we then with the help of an uncle Carlos and aunt Elza, Fernando and his wife, Magda, brought the St Elmo’s Woodfired Pizzeria concept to Times Square Shopping Centre, Walmer in May of 1999, as a family orientated restaurant with its own kiddies play center, a first in PE! After three and a half years of great success, and bursting at the seams, we secured a bigger premise in Walmer Park Shopping Centre, one of the biggest shopping centres at the time in Port Elizabeth. We opened up our doors to the public in December 2002 and once again built up a great following, providing food lovers with authentic WOODFIRED pizza of outstanding quality, with superb service. This, together with a FREE delivery (within a 3km radius of the store), excellent service and their resolute insistence of using only the freshest, prime ingredients in all products, created a successful recipe for us. After 22 years of constant growth and success in the hospitality industry and upon hearing about renovations to the Walmer Park Shopping Centre, they decided after 15 years in Walmer Park, to step out of the franchise industry in November 2017 to create their own unique brand and franchise San Fernando’s Grillhouse & Woodfired Pizzeria, based on their expertise and experience gained over the past years through hard work, commitment and loyalty to their clients.
BIG shout out to Escola, his wife and full staff compliment striving for excellence daily and serving us all. Onwards and upwards 🙌
If you are a restaurants wanting to come onboard the Diginu delivery platform or would like to market your brand or restaurant offering, reach out and let's have a chat, preferably with some coffee .
