The Closure of Iconic Hospitality Institutions: how do we adapt?
It's a Monday. It's the middle of winter in New Zealand & it's pouring outside.
I wake up to the news of one of Auckland's iconic restaurants, SQPR, closing down & being put into liquidation. It follows Chapel Bar, another Ponsonby institution, placed into receivership earlier this month. And next year, the announcement of Smith & Caughey's, being shut down in 2025 for good.
It hurts. SPQR since 1992. Smith & Caughey's since 1880. They survived through it all, yet now is where it all ends.
I have so many memories especially of Smith & Caughey's, as that's where my story began. My first original store I opened in 2012 on 12 Wellesley Street West, directly opposite the Queen St Smith & Caughey's. I also lived next door above the Elliot Stables in what can only be described as a mini bachelorette pad in the most exciting yet most scary time of life - creating what we now know as Moustache Milk & Cookie Bar.
That was the golden era of Queen Street. The 90's & early 2000's. I loved going to the dingy downstairs arcade in Mid City, the IMAX complex was always bustling, Aotea Square with the trifecta of Town Hall, Civic Theatre & the Aotea Centre. Events always on, milk & cookies were slinging, Giapo 'round the corner was booming. The energy of that area was electric.
How quickly that can change. The landlords, at least in the case of myself and many of my neighbours, putting their foot on our necks until we suffocated, the roads in constant construction for well over half a decade, the vibrancy that once sparkled in that area snuffed out quickly.
But they say the only constant in life, is change. And boy, as a young 20-something year old kid, did I have to learn that quickly.
So Moustache closed down. My pride & joy. My childhood dream. My entire life savings; working full time across 3 jobs while juggling full time university to save up for that very shop. For those of you who got to experience it, that original Moustache store was so special. Gone in a poof.
I had to change so much just to survive; to cling on to the heartbeat of this business.
And today in 2024, as my heart breaks for all these businesses closing, I know all of us business owners will again be called to dig deep & change. We can kick & scream & wish for things to go back to how they were, or we can accept it & embrace the change.
To those customers who have stuck with us, thank you from the bottom of my heart for embracing the change with me. When I moved out of the city, and moved onto a friggen Cookie Bus that toured NZ or into the suburbs/outskirts, people called me crazy. It was a massive change. We were always in the city. That's what people knew of us. But you guys accepted the change with us. And now we are far busier than we ever could've been at that tiny 30m2 shop on Wellesley Street.
That shop would've been proud! That we didn't let it just die with her. Even though I miss her dearly & still feel sadness for the area I held so much love for. But the world keeps changing...so we have to keep changing. Tapping into the resilience of the human spirit. Innovating, creating... a little bit of Kiwi ingenuity & number 8 wire. It's amazing what Kiwi's can achieve when their backs are against the wall - cute fluffy flightless bird on the outside but inside? yeah, we got that dog in us.
So what can I change today? A question I must ask myself as a business owner everyday.