{"id":832958,"date":"2025-07-30T17:35:49","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T15:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=832958"},"modified":"2025-07-31T13:23:44","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T11:23:44","slug":"the-man-who-went-from-waiting-tables-at-spur-to-building-a-r1-billion-empire-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/832958\/the-man-who-went-from-waiting-tables-at-spur-to-building-a-r1-billion-empire-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The man who went from waiting tables at Spur to building a R1 billion empire in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Grenville Salmon, CEO and founder of Pace Car Rental, went from waiting tables at Spur to founding a car rental business valued at over R1 billion, with over 5,000 vehicles, 400 staff members, and nine branches across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salmon was born in Johannesburg and spent part of his childhood in Benoni before returning to Johannesburg, where he studied for a Bachelor of Commerce at Wits University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He later qualified as a chartered accountant and completed a postgraduate diploma in accounting at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before his formal career began, Salmon took on various jobs to support himself, including waiting tables at Spur and working at McDonald\u2019s in the UK. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He credits these early jobs with giving him a solid grounding in customer service and responsibility. His interest in car rentals started while working at Deloitte, where one of his major clients was Imperial Car Rental. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of starting his own business began to take shape while he was still employed. \u201cI was working at the time and there was a lot of politics,\u201d he recalled<\/a><\/strong> in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was chatting to my wife and saying I could do this [car rentals] so well. And she just said one day, \u2018Well, the first step is resigning.\u2019 And I was like, that\u2019s right. That is actually the first step.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With limited capital and a Toyota Quantum he owned, Salmon started small. Realising the Quantum wasn\u2019t ideal for rentals, he made a plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI gave my mom my car and started renting out hers. That\u2019s the basics of car rental; fleet management and trying to make it work with what you\u2019ve got,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting finance was his biggest challenge. \u201cYou can work hard on marketing and fleet management, but getting the money is difficult, especially when you don\u2019t have much,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gap in the market<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Grenville Salmon, CEO and founder of Pace Car Rental<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

He was able to borrow against his home loan to grow the business just before the 2010 FIFA World Cup. During this time, Salmon saw an opportunity to provide vehicles to other rental companies when they were overbooked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He called this \u201csub-hiring\u201d, renting vehicles to larger companies during peak periods. At the same time, there was growing demand from individuals who didn\u2019t qualify for vehicle finance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of these customers were Zimbabwean nationals looking for affordable options like the VW City Golf. That\u2019s when Pace shifted toward long-term car rentals<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe realised everybody else was servicing the tourism market. But many people outside tourism needed to rent vehicles\u2014contractors, film crews, even people rolling out fibre or delivering medicine,\u201d Salmon said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He and his wife kept their spending low and reinvested everything into expanding the fleet. They found customers through platforms like Gumtree and added more cars as money allowed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not having airport branches forced them to find other customers, many of whom were small businesses that needed reliable transport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEntrepreneurs would get a contract to fix ceilings in schools, but didn\u2019t have vehicles. They\u2019d come to us and quite often, they\u2019d end up renting month after month,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, Salmon spotted another gap: e-hailing. He decided to market directly to Uber drivers by handing out pamphlets himself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Uber drivers just kept moving as I tried to hand them out. It took me three hours and I handed out seven pamphlets,\u201d he said. Despite the slow start, it worked overtime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pace began offering cars to Uber drivers, focusing on models that made financial sense. Instead of just giving drivers the most popular cars, Salmon\u2019s team helped them choose models that would make them more money after costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ‘golden streak’ <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By 2013, the company had a fleet of 100 vehicles. That number doubled each year, reaching over 5,000 vehicles today. The fleet is now valued at over R1 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Covid-19 hit, car rentals took a hit, but the business found a way to keep going. They registered as an essential service and continued operating. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came a shortage of new vehicles due to global chip supply issues, which actually helped rental companies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom October that year, you couldn\u2019t even buy a car. Whatever you had, you could rent out. It was a two-year golden streak,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pace has since diversified into other areas, including acquiring Supreme Forklift to broaden its operations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company now operates nine branches, including Johannesburg, Kempton Park, Pretoria, Cape Town, Gqeberha, and Umhlanga. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It rents out everything from budget hatchbacks to minibuses, panel vans, bakkies, and SUVs. Businesses use Pace to scale their transport up or down depending on the time of year or project needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the scale of the business, Salmon is still involved and signs surety for all the company\u2019s vehicle financing. \u201cStill today, I sign personal surety for all of our HPs and debt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back, he doesn\u2019t believe a lack of capital should stop people from starting a business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou always hear people saying they can\u2019t start because they can\u2019t get funding. Yes, it\u2019s difficult, but you\u2019ve got to use what you\u2019ve got. I just put extra money from working into the business and grew it. That compounding is massive,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t always need equity investors to begin. You just need to figure out the little steps to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grenville Salmon, CEO and founder of Pace Car Rental, went from waiting tables at Spur to founding a car rental business with over 5,000 vehicles valued at over R1 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":833595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[23255,23253,853],"class_list":["post-832958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-classic-business","tag-pace-car-rental","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832958"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":833681,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832958\/revisions\/833681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}