Pienaar pizza chef has big dreams to start restaurant

The young chef from Pienaar, Percy Nkosi, has a vision of establishing a pizza restaurant that will be 100% locally owned and the first of its kind in the neighborhood.
Seeing that the community are without options when in need of pizza, Nkosi wants to be the answer by offering such service to the people much closer to their homes.

Nkosi currently bakes and sells the tasty pizzas from home and has dreams of bringing Sandton to Pienaar.
“I am working in a deli where I make pizzas and that’s how I how got the idea of baking and selling pizza on my own. The fact that people in my community have to travel far to get pizza hit my mind and I saw an opportunity to bring ease at the same time make a living,” said Nkosi.

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He said he is saving up and little by little and he will make his restaurant dream a reality.
“I work hard and smart at the same time to realise my dream of opening my own restaurant at the heart of ghetto such as this. This has great potential of creating much needed job opportunities as I look at hiring local chefs and staff.
“The bigger picture is to make this restaurant classy, but at the same time have that kasi flavour and touch,” he added.
Nkosi said he encounters a lot of challenges and financial difficulties.

“Since I work with limited resources, I encounter many problems. I use the small oven at home and sometimes I get an influx of orders which I end up taking time to prepare and this angers customers. I don’t have my own space and this is also one of the challenges I am faced with. Load-shedding makes matters worse as some of the orders cannot be fully baked. I cannot afford a generator to keep the power on and this is when most customers want something to eat because they too don’t have electricity,” he continued.

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“I did apply for funding with the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), but with no luck. I went to its offices on many occasions and did all that is required on the applications, but it still wasn’t enough,” he added.

Nkosi concluded by saying that he will not give up on his dream because he believes it will not only be beneficial to him, but the entire community as well.