American Dream without America :)

You do not think that it is possible to move from a childhood in one of South Africa's poorest and most violent townships to the ownership of two high-end restaurants? Then it is time that you become acquainted with the story of Desmond Mabuza.

Desmond Mabuza grew up in Soweto. Soweto is an abbreviation for South Western Townships, which was a union of townships for "black people", but today this union belongs to Johannesburg in South Africa. After his childhood, he was trained as a civil engineer in the US. When he came back to South Africa he had an opportunity to help set up a restaurant, called Back o' the Moon. He handled to do his engineering work in the daytime and managing the restaurant in the night. After a while there came his all changing opportunity: someone was needed to run the restaurant full time and Desmond requested for this job. 14 years later you can still find him in the restaurant business. He stayed with Back o' the Moon for nine years but then he started planning his own restaurant. His first own restaurant, called Signature opened in 2009 and because of its great and overwhelming success, Wall Street, Desmond's second restaurant opened one year later. Some interested parties contacted him and asked him about doing something in Namibia, Zambia, Kenya and Ghana. Desmond also works together with a hotel school based in Tanzania and he is eager to help whoever wants to enter the restaurant business.
To sum up: Desmond Mabuza started as a normal person with maybe even less opportunities and chances for a good life than others, but he did it. He never gave up or stopped believing and now he is the only black restaurant owner on the top of the footchain on the level of fine dining in South Africa. Nothing is impossible! :)

"We live in an era when people expect everything to be immediate -especially the youngsters. The real world doesn't work that way, unless you win the lottery." Desmond Mabuza

"Success is the perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty and persistence." Colin Powell (US general)