Three Generations of Butchery, Hospitality & South African Steakhouse History

A family story that began behind the butcher’s counter

The story of The Butcher Shop & Grill began long before our doors opened in 1994. Its roots stretch back almost a century, through three generations of the Pick family and a shared passion for meat, butchery, restaurants, wine and hospitality.

In the 1930s, Fay Pick entered the butcher’s trade at a time when it was considered almost exclusively a man’s profession. In 1938/39 she passed the same municipal trade examination as her male counterparts and became the first woman in South Africa to receive an official butcher’s certificate — a pioneering achievement that made news in Cape Town.

Together with her husband, Dave Pick, himself a butcher, Fay went on to own and operate Farmers’ Meat Supply and Kalk Bay Butchery. Quality meat, traditional butchery and personal service were not marketing ideas to the Pick family; they were the family trade.

Their son, Alan Pick, grew up behind the butcher’s counter and began learning the trade from his father at just five years old. But Alan would eventually take the family’s knowledge of meat far beyond the butcher shop.

Alan Pick — a life in restaurants, steak & South African wine

Alan entered the restaurant industry as a young man and went on to become one of the most influential restaurateurs in South African hospitality. Over the course of his career he owned more than 20 different restaurants, including some of Johannesburg’s best-known names — Late Night Al’s, Mi-Vami, Giuseppe’s and The Grillhouse, to name just a few.

But Alan’s contribution extended well beyond restaurants. For decades he became a passionate champion of South African steak and wine, developing close personal relationships with many of the country’s leading winemakers and farming families — relationships built at a time when South African wine was still establishing its international reputation.

For more than 10 years, The Butcher Shop & Grill was the largest buyer of wine at the Cape Winemakers Guild Auction, at the time South Africa’s most prestigious wine auction. Alan’s commitment to buying, serving and promoting exceptional South African wine helped make wine an integral part of the experience from the very beginning — a relationship with the South African wine industry that continues to define the business today.

1994 — The Butcher Shop & Grill is born

In 1994, Alan brought together the worlds he understood best: butchery, restaurants and wine. At what was then Sandton Square, he opened The Butcher Shop & Grill — combining a premium steakhouse, working butchery and serious wine cellar under one roof.

The concept was simple, but at the time highly unusual. Rather than choosing a steak from a description on a menu, guests could walk up to the butcher’s counter, see the meat for themselves, speak directly to a butcher and choose their cut and preferred size before it reached the grill.

The butcher’s counter was not decoration. It was a working butchery and an integral part of the restaurant. That experience became one of the defining signatures of The Butcher Shop & Grill and remains at the heart of the business more than three decades later.

The third generation — Dani Pick

For Dani Pick, The Butcher Shop & Grill was part of life from the moment he could walk. He grew up inside the restaurant and, rather than entering the family business from the top, learned it from the ground up — working across virtually every part of the operation, from the scullery and kitchen to the restaurant floor and butchery.

Dani later studied hospitality in Switzerland, adding formal international training to a lifetime of experience within the family business. He also became instrumental in evolving the meat offering for a new generation.

Almost 20 years ago, Dani introduced Wagyu beef to The Butcher Shop & Grill, with the restaurant becoming the first in South Africa to sell Wagyu beef. He subsequently expanded the beef programme, developing the extensive selection of breeds, origins, cuts and grades available today. The Butcher Shop & Grill now offers the largest selection of beef in South Africa, with more than 10 breeds sourced locally and internationally, alongside premium South African Wagyu, Japanese A5 Wagyu and other exceptional beef from around the world.

With Alan now retired, Dani runs The Butcher Shop & Grill today — carrying forward the traditions established by his grandparents and father while continuing to evolve the business for the next generation.

Why the butchery still matters

After three generations, the butcher’s counter remains at the centre of who we are. Our guests are encouraged to walk up to the counter, see the meat and speak to our Master Butchers. Choose between local and imported beef, grass-fed and grain-fed, bone-in and boneless, lean or richly marbled. Select your breed, cut and preferred size, and have it prepared exactly the way you want it before it reaches the grill.

Our steaks are wet- and dry-aged for between 21 and 60 days, depending on the cut, breed, fat content and individual characteristics of the beef. Our Master Butchers manage that process with an understanding that different breeds and cuts require different treatment to achieve their best flavour and tenderness.

And the butchery is not only for restaurant guests. The same premium-quality meat served in our restaurants is available to purchase from our adjoining butcheries at retail butchery prices. Our butchers can cut and prepare your selection to preference, whether you are taking home beef, Wagyu, lamb, biltong, fish or seafood.

It is why we have never considered ourselves simply a steakhouse. We are a restaurant and a working butchery — and have been since 1994.

Two cities. One family tradition.

Our Johannesburg steakhouse and butchery at Nelson Mandela Square, Sandton, is where The Butcher Shop & Grill began in 1994. More than three decades later it remains a Johannesburg institution, serving generations of regular guests alongside business leaders, international visitors and diners from across South Africa.

Our Cape Town steakhouse and butchery on Beach Road, Mouille Point, brings the same tradition to the Atlantic Seaboard — combining exceptional meat, premium Wagyu and an extensive South African wine collection with uninterrupted views across the Atlantic.

The restaurants have their own personalities, but the philosophy remains the same: exceptional meat, expert butchery, informed choice, fine wine and genuine hospitality. From Fay and Dave Pick, to Alan Pick, to Dani Pick, The Butcher Shop & Grill is the product of three generations who have spent their lives working with meat, restaurants and people.

Three generations. Nearly a century of butchery. More than three decades of The Butcher Shop & Grill. A legacy of South African steak and wine.