First restaurant celebrates 25 years

 

By Gael McConachy

Twenty-five years ago a couple of friends and I opened the first restaurant in Mangawhai. Three years previously my sister Philippa, Box and myself had taken up the opportunity to rent the area the Council had designated for commercial development, a block of land in Wood St at the Heads, previously referred to as the ‘gorse patch cinema’ site. Philippa designed the first stage of the shops and Box built them. Once completed, we had tenancy for six of them: an electrician, a hairdresser, a baker, a butcher, a vegetable shop and a takeaway. One small shop was left.

“What don’t we have?” asked Box.

“A stationers,” I replied. “Somewhere to buy cards and books and gifts. I’ll do it.”

Named The Pen and Dickens I packed masses of stock into what is now the front part of the bakery. Within three years we decided to proceed with the second stage. The bakery needed more room and wanted to expand into my shop. I too decided to increase my stock and took a new shop in the next stage. Within a few months it was sold.

The new shops included a drapery, a real estate agent, the larger Pen and Dickens and a spare shop. There was interest in turning the spare shop into a restaurant and when the prospective owners decided against it some friends – Norah Butler and Cynthia Linnell-Wright – and I decide to give it a go. Although it was only a couple of months before Christmas we all worked to get it open before Christmas.

 

I was to be the chief cook, a daunting proposition. My first job had been a home economics teacher, a great grounding in the fundamentals of cooking, but no training on how to run a restaurant. I heard there were some ex home ec teachers running a cafe in Whangarei. I knocked on their door. What they thought of this person standing there saying ‘I am opening a restaurant in Mangawhai very soon and I haven’t a clue what to do’ I can’t imagine. Fortunately for me they opened the door and said ‘Come on in, you can sit in the restaurant for a few days and we will show you all we know.’
 

I had a fantastic time and Mary and Sue, the owners of the Classic Cafe in Kamo have been close friends ever since. They set me up with some basic rules and procedures. Don’t do any main, they recommended, that take longer than 20 minutes. They were unbelievably generous with ideas and recipes.

We managed one practise night with friends and family. Opening night we were fully booked and an hour into the evening, to my horror, one of the ovens stopped working. I remember standing in the middle of the kitchen looking out into the crowded restaurant, at the lines of orders and panicking.

“I can’t do it,” I said to looks of disbelief.

“Oh yes you can,” said the others. “Just keep going.”

The power supply in those days was particularly unreliable and I remember there being a power cut on our second night. Fortunately we had just finished serving all the mains, and we lit all the candles available and served desserts by candle light.

The original restaurant has moved a few times. It expanded into the drapery shop after we sold it in February 1992. After a few owners it was renamed Sail Rock, and when the shops across the road were built it was moved to its present position. Marg, the present owner, has decided to celebrate the 25 years by having an evening on Friday March 6. She has chosen some old favourites from our original recipes for the menu. We hope anyone interested in joining us to celebrate the restaurant’s first years will contact Margaret Fish on 431 4051 for reservations.



(9b) The first ad for Beaches – open six days a week.

(55) The outdoor area completed in the second year.

(63) Barb Wintle, me and Cynthia toasting a busy night.

(101) Women in business. Clockwise from back left, Katy Costello, Trish Powley, Jenny Jones, Francie Byrne, Gael McConachy.

(200) Norah (left) and current Sail Rock owner Marg Fish.

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