Puts the group up against two traditional strongholds for its opposition ...
A Spur restaurant in Durbanville on 21 April 2020 in Cape Town. Picture: Gallo Images/Jacques Stander
Doppio Zero, which now forms the bulk of Spur Corporation’s ‘speciality brands’ unit, is being leveraged by the group to enter segments where it has not yet been able to compete in.
Spur CEO Val Nichas says Doppio has been the group’s leading innovator of trading formats, with the unit introducing Doppio Caffè, Doppio Bistrot and Doppio Roam in the last year, to take the total number of stores to 38.
Of these, the core brand (Zero) totals 27, with three new openings in the last 12 months (in Irene Village, Hartenbos and East Rand Mall).
The Caffè format has been opened in locations where it has a captive market: think hospitals (Sandton Mediclinic), office parks (Ballyoaks in Bryanston) and hotels (Marriott’s Protea Hotel Sea Point).
The first category is a space Famous Brands knows well – it operates NetCafé at Netcare hospitals and Coffee Couture at Mediclinics.
Each of these spaces sees a tweak to the format. For instance, says Nichas, the hospital format includes a small retail selection of grab-and-go items – “the things you normally see in a little hospital shop”. She says there has been a “phenomenal response” to that first store.
The Caffè at the Protea Hotel in Sea Point replaced some of the space vacated when the Spur in the hotel closed (the remainder of the space is occupied by an independent seafood restaurant).
Nichas says it obviously has a captive market – “being hotel guests who have breakfast there” – but it is also “a beautiful restaurant” with a deck “that is lovely for cocktails or evening drinks”.
Doppio Bistrot, at the new Nine Yards development in Rosebank, has gained a lot of attention, according to Nichas. It also offers a private dining area. This store is company-owned, as it also owns the other two Doppios in the vicinity (the original store in Greenside and Rosebank).
Nichas says “in order not to cannibalise the business, we didn’t want to franchise it yet” but it may elect to do so in future.
Doppio Roam
Nichas is most excited by Doppio Roam, its “new food-on-the-move or grab-and-go concept”.
The first store opened in August (in the new financial year) at Irene Village Mall in Centurion (opposite the new Checkers Hyper).
It offers coffee, baked items, healthy meals, and retail products.
The outlet is owned by an existing Doppio franchisee, and Nichas adds that “these kinds of stores will probably be satellite stores for franchisees that own [Doppio Zero] stores”.
“A lot of the production of bakery items will happen at the main store and then be brought to Doppio Roam.”
She adds that this format represents an opportunity the group has been looking for for many years – a format that attracts a younger investor who “maybe only has R1.3 million or R1.8 million” to invest.
“The concept can work in 50m2, so it can just be a counter that’s serving coffee. Or it can have a little bit of seating and go up to 120m2.”
The explosion of coffee shop chains in recent years (Vida e Caffè, Seattle Coffee Company, Bootlegger Coffee Company and Platō Coffee), which Doppio Roam is not dissimilar to, shows just how big this market segment is.
Nichas sees tremendous opportunity in scaling this format and “believes it’s going to be really popular for the business”.
Battle of the beans
Both Doppio Caffè and Doppio Roam put the group firmly up against Mugg & Bean, owned by Famous Brands. That brand itself has extended into the takeout and light meal space with its smaller ‘On The Move’ stores (which allowed it to extend its presence to fuel forecourts and office parks too).
At the end of February 2026, Famous Brands had 301 Mugg & Bean stores. Doppio is about 8% of the size, which illustrates the scale of the opportunity.
Increasingly, these brands will be competing for the same space in many of these kinds of settings. And based on the success of the hospital format, expect Famous Brands’s historically tight grip on that ‘captive market’ to wane.
Doppio added seven stores in the 12 months to 30 June, approaching the low double-digit numbers of new Spur and Panarottis stores that are added, on average, each year.
The breakfast category was the strongest-growing daypart for the group, with sales up 8% for the year. Still, it only contributes 11% to overall restaurant sales.
For Doppio, Nichas says half its trade is in the breakfast daypart.
This article was republished from Moneyweb. Read the original here.
