'I have been unemployed for 20 years because I have a paid hobby.'
Food has always been the constant in Ryan du Toit’s story. His love of creating a good meal never in doubt.
He fell in love and trained as a chef, his relationship followed him into marketing, advertising and branding. Today he’s manifesting it again at the Berlin Bear, the Krugersdorp restaurant he calls his happy place.
His love of food also spawned his other, first love. Because while he was a student, he also discovered his other future vocation.
“I was studying to be a chef but spent more time designing menus than actually cooking,” Du Toit said. Detail was his burden as well as his pursuit and soon after finishing off at food school he segued to marketing and the look and feel of, well, stuff. The lessons stayed, but he applied it elsewhere.
Du Toit was 19 when he launched his first ad agency. “Food was still there though,” he said. “I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning and had to formulate my own strategic thinking.”
It’s there that he drew another analogy to food. Strategy became his recipe. Campaigns had to be mixed by method and well plated while the experience of the final dish was as important as its taste.
From chef to ad-man
The agency grew quickly. From first making estate agent boards and working on corporate golf days it eventually expanded into full brand work for loads of companies. Naming, design, interiors, events and even music videos were the order of the day.
“We do everything ourselves. We do not believe in above the line or below the line. We believe in through the line,” Du Toit said. Even as the business added skills like photography, videography and festival staging, his relationship with and love of food was always hovering in the near background.
Food also connected the dots on Du Toit’s side hustles. When du Toit is not in the kitchen or in a meeting, he is experimenting with 3D printing or chipping away at a film project that has been years in the making.
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Working with restaurants as agency clients also saw him return to the kitchen. “The passion of advertising and marketing and the food and beverage just went hand in hand,” he said.
It also somehow massaged fate into lining up a new opportunity for Du Toit. A residential estate development needed a new restaurant partner and he stepped up to the challenge. “We had to develop everything new. From the way it looked to the way it tasted,” Du Toit said.
Food never exited his story
The result is Berlin Bear, a family restaurant, pub and waffle house. Du Toit said he wanted a venue where families gather and where milestones are celebrated. Weddings, birthdays and anniversaries through to live music.
“It is my happy place. I hold all my agency meetings there. I spend most of my weekends there. I have been unemployed for 20 years because I have a paid hobby,” he said.
And you can see it in the design of the place. It’s cosy, warm, funky and just as bold as Du Toit. “The functional benefit of a restaurant is not just to eat. It is to have an experience,” he said.
