It was just for fun when serial entrepreneur Xitsakiso Baloyi tried out some recipes in his sister’s kitchen during Covid-19 lockdown. But for “Mr Rabbit”, who has spent the past five years building three different businesses, the positive feedback he received was the signal to start a new venture.
Four months later, the ambitious businessman from N’wamitwa village in Tzaneen opened Rabbit’s Pizza. It was the newest business in his stable which already included Rabbit Events Management, Rabbit Clothing and Rabbit Car Rental.
It all started in April last year while he was sharing videos on Facebook of himself trying out various recipes with friends. He received requests to try making pizza. When the pizza came out, he recalls, it looked so yummy that orders soon followed.
Financial constraints saw Rabbit’s Pizza being run from home for the first three months until Baloyi scraped together some money. Shortly after, he opened the first outlet. Based in the Monyela Business Complex in Mankweng, the outlet currently employs four people, including Baloyi.
“The business started in April. On the 10th of April – that’s when I made the first pizza. The business had to run from home until the 14th of August when I opened the first outlet,” Baloyi recalls.
Here, a stone’s throw from the University of Limpopo’s Gate 1, he is not only selling pizza but also burgers. Just recently, he added platters and English breakfast to the menu.
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A childhood dream comes to fruition
Baloyi explained in a Facebook post how he became “Mr Rabbit”. It is now six years ago that he decided to take a detour at a Magoebaskloof stop-and-go while they were busy fixing the road. He was on his way back from a church youth conference in June 2015.
“While driving down this road, two rabbits started running in front of the car and by grace I bumped one…” A week later he registered the company Rabbit Events Management Pty Ltd.
Baloyi has always wished to open a restaurant, since as far back as his junior school years in 2008. “But I had no idea how and when I was going to start it, because of resources,” he says.
Then the love he received from social media for his lockdown pizza made him realise that he didn’t need to start a restaurant the conventional way with the high costs of outfitting a professional kitchen upfront. “It came as an advantage to say, ‘Oh no, I don’t need to be owning or renting a place for me to open a restaurant; I can just start it from home and grow from there’.”
Luckily for him, Baloyi grew up in a household where chores were equally divided, which now makes up for his lack of formal education in hospitality or culinary studies.
Financing and other challenges
Baloyi has encountered various challenges. He frequently had to close down the business temporarily due to Covid-19 measures. And there was inconsistent sales. But despite all these tribulations, he continues to keep his head above water.
“The business opens up and sometimes closes down. And when you are operating from the shop, you have to pay rent and the workers.”
He says that since workers earn their rates even if there’s only one customer a day, “we just have to keep the business running; and yeah, hopefully we’ll walk past that.”
So far, the business has been entirely self-funded. “I often get a lot of questions such as, ‘Who is funding you?’ I want to make it clear that we have not been funded by any government institution – or anyone for that matter,” declares Baloyi.
“Everything we do, we do out of our savings. But that is not to say we don’t want to be funded. We are waiting to be funded and we want to be funded so that we can also grow.”
Shedding light on his business aspirations, Baloyi heartily says, “Rabbit’s Pizza is a fast-growing business. If you can check from last year, we have done so many things. And with the growth rate, I believe and know that in the coming years we’re going to be growing.” He even has dreams of creating franchises.
“To be honest with you, I receive a lot of messages on our pages and calls [from people] asking us, ‘When are we starting with franchising?’ That is where we are going. It might be slow, but we will end up there. It’s going to be one of the biggest [pizza joints] here in South Africa and abroad.”
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