Lyttelton Favourite Finds Its Feet Again

The Lyttelton Coffee Company is once again giving locals their daily fix of caffeine, as it returns to business after the 2011 earthquakes forced its doors to close.

The London Street hotspot was a favourite for locals before the deadly quakes forced it to close.

Even with the café out of action, they continued to provide for locals.

Manager Tessa Brodie said in the immediate aftermath of the earthquakes, they rescued the coffee machine from downstairs and provided free coffees for a couple of weeks.

“It was awesome to be able to do that for our community,” she said.

“Then when we set up a make-shift café in a garage, it became a meeting spot for everyone.”

The reopening was a long time coming, and the café relies on word of mouth to bring people back in.

That word seems to be paying off.

Lyttelton locals Melanie Betts and Brita Corbett say they had their noses pressed against the windows for about a year waiting for the time to come.

“There’s always been a café that people go to, but as the population grew this just became ‘the’ place,” Betts said.

The café isn’t a franchise, and that sees it serves a greater diversity of people, something that’s a big draw card according to Corbett.

“It’s a casual space, some big tables and some small. When you look around you don’t see anyone in suits, and that’s what Lyttelton is,” Corbett said.

Café owner Stephen Mateer is all about roasting good quality coffee. Blended with the quality service Lyttelton Coffee Company provides, and this local hotspot is well and truly back on its feet.

Community Spirit High In The East

Paul Zaanen’s vision is to build a vibrant, exciting culture amongst the New Brighton community.

So back in 2013 he initiated the New Brighton Business and Landowners Association.

When Zaanen moved to the seaside suburb after the earthquakes, he began managing a café and immediately noticed something needed to be done.

That’s when he started speaking with local councillor Peter Beck. They both decided more needed to be done in the New Brighton area.

From there Zaanen began putting a plan into action, sitting down in a local pub with other business people from the area and sketching out exactly what needed to happen.

“If it wasn’t for the buy in of all the groups of people, and the personalities and the community over the last two and a half years, we wouldn’t still be going,” he said.

But Zaanen still had to juggle his full time job managing a cafe, while trying to manage the Business and Landowners Association at the same time.

“I was going to all these council meetings, and pretty much trying to work while doing it,” he said.

“I kept having to leave work and answer phone calls, and leave work to go to these meetings about New Brighton and that’s when we knew we needed a permanent employee in place.”

It was started with the intention of rebuilding a commercial centre in New Brighton that everyone can be proud of, and that has full resident participation.

And the progress being made in New Brighton is becoming clearer.

It started with the markets. These used to happen every second weekend with anywhere from 15-30 stalls, although there was minimal interest.

So they decided to develop some strategies around the markets, and how they could expand them to bring back community interest. Now they happen every week.

“There’s now 35 stalls, it’s booked out for four months in advance and there’s guaranteed foot traffic of 500-1000 people every Saturday,” he said.

Zaanen wants to build on the fact that “New Brighton has a very proud history”.

This history goes back to when New Brighton was the only place in New Zealand that allowed Saturday trading. The area was swarming with people.

And that is what Zaanen’s main focus is- the people. For him, this is all about the residents.

“We work really strongly in the community sector here,” he said.

“I’m a big believer in trust. I trust the community [that they have the right intent] and in turn we’ve built up trust with the community.”

Zaanen ultimately took up the role to create a village centre where commerce and community meet in the middle. “It needs to benefit everyone”.

“We get to create something truly unique that the rest of the city is going to want to embrace,” he said.

But that is just another step.

Zaanen insists the vision for New Brighton must be shared across both the landowners and property developers, and the community.

It’s no secret the people of New Brighton like to be heard. When the Christchurch City Council asked for submissions on their Long Term Plan, over 40% of them came from one suburb- New Brighton.

But Zaanen insists that he does not want to create a Ferrymead type suburb.

“We don’t want boxes and car parks. We aren’t a retail centre and we don’t have an ambition to be a retail centre,” he said.

“Most of the Christchurch villages are dead… so for us we want to use what we have. We have 30km of beaches; we have estuaries, [and we have] forests. People want to live here.”

Zaanen says it is important for him to take his investment plans public, to gauge the communities opinion.

“If the community doesn’t like something, then they aren’t going to do it.”

“If you’re doing something [the community] don’t like, well then you’re not doing your job well, because it should be something that they like,” he said.

New Brighton’s future is in quality shape. Now it’s about taking it one step at a time to ensure the seaside suburb is back at its best, just as it should be.

“Brighton now has more of a voice, it has more participation, more people connecting and events and all of these good things happening and that really keeps you going.”