Dannevirke's High St takes small step toward return to normality

Sammy Christison is one of several of Dannevirke's cafe owners to have opened the doors to her business yesterday.

Dannevirke's High St took a step toward returning to normal this week with a number of businesses reopening.

Tararua District mayor Tracey Collis said she was looking forward to driving along the town's main street and seeing it look busier than it has been.

She said in her home town of Eketahuna she had aleady noticed an increase in traffic and queues outside takeaway businesses.

"It has been a lot of work for businesses to reopen under alert level 3 to arrange contactless payments and to ensure their staff and customers are safe."

Collis said going forward there is the thought the level 4 lockdown will impact on businesses.

"Businesses have made a huge sacrifice in closing for four weeks.

"There's a very real fear out there that some businesses won't survive so I would encourage people to shop and spend locally."

However, people needed to take the safety issue very seriously.

Among the businesses to reopen was Sammy's Cafe which Sammy Christison has been operating for 18 months.

Since opening on Tuesday Christison said it had been a bit quiet, but for her it was about creating some income.

"Our customers have been amazing and understand the need for social distancing."

She said the only snag that she hit occasionally was with customers who didn't have Paywave.

"We just give them our bank account number and they pay that way.

"We've been really lucky. There's a great community spirit in Tararua.

"We don't rely on passing traffic for 50 per cent of our trade. Most of our customers are locals and we are very grateful to them for their support."

Dannevirke Post Shop has reopened and has been extremely busy, judging by the queue waiting to be served yesterday.

Papillon Printing is another business to reopen, although owner Vanessa Esterhuysen said she was fortunate that she had work to keep her going over the lockdown, as did her husband Francois who operates his own business manufacturing stainless steel barbecue trailers and other stainless steel products.

Esterhuysen opened her business in October and provides personalised printing.

"I can print on virtually anything from T-shirts to vinyl to ceramic, anything that's weird really."

The couple moved to Dannevirke in July.

"My husband was delivering a barbecue trailer to one of the schools here. We had been looking to move out of Auckland and when we drove into Dannevirke we looked at each other and said perhaps this is the place for us."

Three months later Esterhuysen had her business up and running.

Shires Fruit and Vege market have been running a limited delivery service but this will change to a pick-up service from Monday.

Owner Suresh Patel said orders can be placed and paid for online and picked up the following day from the back of the store.

"Our focus will continue to be on rural deliveries and these will go out each day from Monday."

He said the store would continue to supply basic food boxes which are based on what's available.

"We will be sending out some more orders later this week and we have been working to supply other businesses that have reopened."