BET ON BURGERS: From struggling student to store manager – the burger wager that opened new doors

If you’ve been to Balkan Burger, one of Gqeberha’s trendiest burger joints, chances are you’ve been greeted by the friendly face of MJ Moeta.

Soon, the 23-year-old will be leaving the Summerstrand store to manage the franchise’s second outlet in Nelson Mandela Bay — an opportunity that came about after a wager with her boss, Bojan Ivanovic.

Moeta’s warm smile and positive energy come from years of experience in the hospitality industry – however, the 23-year-old’s journey with Balkan Burger is a relatively short, but inspiring, story of how a supportive community put her in the fortunate position that she is in now.

“This was never part of the plan, but I am grateful for the path that was set for me, and I cannot see myself ever doing anything else,” the bubbly Moeta said.

While she celebrates a new chapter in her journey with Balkan Burger, the brand also celebrated several milestones this past weekend, including a look back at where it started, its meteoric rise in popularity in Gqeberha, and new partnerships as it expands its reach in the Friendly City.

The rise of MJ

Named after the Rain Queen Modjadji, the ruler of the Balobedu people in Limpopo, Modjadji Junior (MJ for short) carried a lot of responsibility to succeed.

As “the smart one in the family”, she felt the pressure to succeed. To get away from that pressure, she opted to further her studies after school on the opposite side of the country.

With funding from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), she enrolled in a biochemistry degree at Nelson Mandela University. Things went well for the first year, but administrative issues with her funding saw her fighting to reach the end of her second year.

Unfortunately, these challenges persisted and as she headed into her third year, funding dried up completely. With her parents unable to cover her studies, she was forced to return home and plan her next move.

But seeing her peers stuck in the same places they were when she left, with big ideas but no real plans on how to achieve success, she knew she had to once again leave home to find a way forward. Moeta opted to return to Gqeberha.

The move had a ticking clock. Her landlord in Central Gqeberha, from when she was NSFAS-funded, offered her a place to stay at the end of 2024, but only until the next crop of students arrived for the first semester of 2025. She sent out CVs, went from one place to the next trying to find a job, and finally, on a Sunday afternoon, walked into Balkan Burger in the Boardwalk Mall and asked to see the manager.

That was her first encounter with one of the franchise’s founders and owners, Bojan Ivanovic.

“He took a look at my CV and pointed out all my spelling mistakes. He commented on my lack of experience and started asking me all these strange questions.

“He asked me if I knew what a babushka is. He handed me a set of Russian nesting dolls and asked me what it meant to me. Then he challenged me to a game of chess, which I lost.

“But somewhere along the line I must have said something that he liked, because at the end he told me to come back the next day. And I have been here since,” she laughed.

“I was on the verge of losing my place to stay when one of my colleagues offered me a place. Within a few short weeks, I had found more than a job. I found a family.”

Moeta started as a hostess, greeting customers at the door and taking them to their seats, and quickly started waitressing as well. She found an outlet for her outgoing personality and love of working with people, and soon the idea of furthering her studies in science was a distant memory.

Besides the food, one of the keys to Balkan Burger’s rapid growth and success is its active and highly entertaining social media presence, and Moeta soon became a familiar face alongside Ivanonic – more affectionately known as Mr B.

With her limited experience at the shop, Moeta scraped together the courage to approach Ivanovic and tell him that she felt underutilised and wanted an opportunity to contribute more to the business.

She was given some administrative tasks, and Ivanovic started inviting her to attend business meetings. Not long thereafter, he would leave her in charge of the store when he was not around.

MJ’s 1,000 burger wager

In July, Balkan Burger began a new social media campaign – a wager between Mr B and Moeta that had caught the public’s attention.

The bet was simple – if she could sell 1,000 burgers, she would get her own shop.

The challenge got customers through the door to support MJ on her journey to running her own store under the Balkan Burger flag.

Earlier this year, Ivanovic had already planned to expand the franchise to at least one more shop in Gqeberha, but on 19 September, the announcement was made that they were looking for an additional location.

“A bet is a bet, and Gqeberha went wild. The way the community came together to support MJ to realise her dream was overwhelming. We had people travelling from all over the country, stopping at our shop to leave their mark,” Ivanovic said.

“We even had people who could not physically be here buying food and donating it to the homeless.”

He said the initiative was such an empowering experience, and it showed the endless ways the Gqeberha community has banded together behind their brand and supported their shop and their staff.

“MJ has such an incredible story, and she is part of our community and family. She deserves everything that comes her way, and that is why I said: A bet is a bet, and everyone can keep an eye out for two new locations coming soon,” Ivanovic said.

While the shop will still feature the same Balkan Burger favourites, it will also have an “MJ Menu” which is heavily influenced by Asian cuisine.

Asked about the wager and the added responsibility of managing her own store, Moeta said she was up to the challenge.

“I have shadowed Mr B and I know how he runs things. He has also not shielded me from any of the challenges of the business and I’ve been involved in some hard conversations and decisions.

“I feel empowered, and I feel Mr B’s trust in me is his own way of giving back to the community and to support those who have supported him along the way,” Moeta said.

Since leaving Polokwane in 2024, Moeta has not seen her family again. Her decision to leave behind her studies and pursue a career in hospitality was a bitter pill to swallow at first, but she said her parents had come around and had been very supportive of her decisions.

“I hope to bring them here when we open the new store. I left home to be different, and I want to show my parents that my decision paid off,” she said.

The Balkan Burger story

At the weekend, Balkan Burger hosted an event at its Summerstrand store to celebrate its 15th anniversary nationally and its fourth year in Gqeberha.

When they started in 2011, Ivanovic, a software engineer, and his sister Lidija, an attorney, left their corporate jobs behind to start a food truck in Braamfontein. 

With little more than a borrowed braai and an idea to bring their own take on Yugoslavian and Serbian food to the people of South Africa, they started what is now a successful franchise.

As with many businesses, Covid-19 left them dead in the water, but they doubled down and rebuilt their brand, with good food and a very entertaining social media presence as the foundation of their growing success.

The siblings agree that while Bojan brings personality to the business, Lidija makes the hard business decisions.

“I visited Gqeberha a few years ago and saw the Boardwalk Mall being built. I finally saw an opportunity to get rid of my brother!” she laughed.

“So while I was growing the business in Gauteng, he was growing it in Nelson Mandela Bay, and together we are thrilled with where this journey has taken us,” Lidija said. DM