What began as an extension of The Butcher & Son is becoming a standalone burger brand, with owner Danie Rossouw building The Smash around genuine Wagyu beef, carefully chosen ingredients and the knowledge of a butcher who has spent years in the meat trade.
The burger bar at The Butcher & Son in Somerset West is officially is officially claiming its own identity. What began in November 2025 as a side project for owner Danie Rossouw has grown into a standalone brand, now known as The Smash by The Butcher & Son. The rebranding marks a shift from a butchery add-on to a dedicated street-food identity with plans for future expansion.
I spoke to Danie Rossouw on site about why the name change matters. For him, it is about giving the burgers a personality that matches the specific effort put into them. While the brand is new, the foundation remains his decades of experience in the meat trade across Germany, the United Kingdom, and South Africa. He is a butcher by training, and he wants that background to be evident in every patty served.
A butcher from the Helderberg
Danie is a local through and through, having attended Gordon’s Bay Primary School and Strand High School. His path to the meat industry was influenced by his German stepfather, a qualified Fleischmeister. This led Danie to Hannover, Germany, where he spent two years learning the trade from meat processing to production.
After a seven-year stint working as a butcher in London, Danie and his wife returned to South Africa in 2012. He spent the next decade working across the commercial and retail sides of the industry before finally deciding to go out on his own. Opening The Butcher & Son in April 2022 was a significant gamble. The couple sold property and cars to fund the start-up, knowing that a modern butchery requires substantial capital to compete. “I know it all, from the groundwork to management, costings and accounting”, Danie said of his hands-on approach to the business.
Testing the Wagyu recipe
The idea for The Smash did not come from a boardroom, but from family trips to Cape Town burger spots and messy experiments in the Rossouw kitchen. Danie wanted to use his access to high-quality Wagyu beef to create something different from the standard takeaway fare. His wife was not always a fan of the process, particularly when the testing left meat and oil splattered across their home kitchen.
The result of those trials was a menu that strips away the fillers. You will not find the usual lettuce and tomato here. Instead, the focus is entirely on the beef, the bun, and the sauce. The meat is coarsely ground Wagyu, seasoned only with salt and pepper. Even the onions are treated with specific care, cooked in Wagyu tallow and brown sugar.
The effort behind the sides
The same refusal to take the easy route extends to the chips. While many local spots rely on frozen bags for convenience, the team at The Smash starts with whole potatoes. These are hand-cut, soaked overnight to strip away excess starch, blanched, and then fried. It is a labor-intensive process that means if they run out of prepared potatoes, they simply cannot serve more chips that day.
Danie is aware that using premium Wagyu and fresh-cut chips pushes the price point higher than a standard franchise burger, but he is firm on the trade-off. He explained that while he could use cheaper ingredients to lower costs, it is not the business he wants to run. “I want to be able to sleep tonight”, he noted, emphasizing the importance of standing behind the quality of his product.
Local roots and future growth
Despite the new branding and professional ambitions, The Smash remains a family-run operation. The outdoor deck and roof at the Somerset West site were built by Danie’s brother, and his son, Daniel, often helps make sausages and serve customers during school holidays. The name The Butcher & Son was chosen specifically with Daniel in mind, though Danie is clear that his son will choose his own path.
For now, the focus is on refining the new brand. The team is currently testing a chicken smash burger using a mix of thigh and fillet for better flavour, though Danie refuses to add it to the menu until it meets his standards. The transition to The Smash signifies a new chapter for the business, moving from a local butchery secret to a brand ready to take on the wider Helderberg food scene.
As the business grows, Danie continues to maintain the personal touch that built his reputation, whether it is delivering meat to a customer in Gordon’s Bay on his way home or customising an order on the fly. It is this combination of professional butchery standards and local flexibility that defines the new brand.
