A Napier wine bar proprietor departing the scene this week has major concerns for the future of CBD businesses unless there is a sharp recovery in summer.
Nadia Nazaryeva took an adventurous first dip into business early in 2018 by opening wine bar and restaurant Matisse in former Napier Club premises opposite the Century Theatre in Herschell St.
She says the area needs attractions to help business recover from the double-hit of Covid and Cyclone Gabrielle.
“Covid wasn’t ‘that’ bad. New Zealanders were still travelling around NZ,” she said.
“But what was bad (in Napier), was the cyclone ... Profit went down 50% overnight, and it never recovered.”
“Napier needs tourists, visitors,” she said, as she prepares to farewell the loyals with last drinks on Friday.
Matisse is one of at least five bar/restaurant or clothing operations closing or moving out of the seaward end of Napier’s business hub this month.
“There have been three-and-a-half very successful years, but the other half not so successful,” she said.
“I have some great supporters, but that’s not enough.”
“You see more struggling than not struggling,” said the hostess, whose business, in its first year, was acclaimed at the Hawke’s Bay Hospital Awards, for its ‘Outstanding Wine and Beverage List’.
But, a lot has changed in seven years, and she said: “This winter was brutal”.
Others going or gone are Pacifica Restaurant on Marine Parade, Teresa Bar in Emerson St, nearby women’s clothing outlet Jacque E, and Alexander’s On Tennyson.
Alexander’s is centralising in Havelock North, having started in the Napier CBD 49 years ago as Alexander’s Menswear.
At least two other shops are empty with “To Let” signs up.
Nazaryeva says everyone is struggling - with bars and restaurants restricting hours and running thin on staff, and more could close.
“I have some great supporters” she said.
“But that’s not enough. Before Covid, we would never close before midnight, now we’re closing sometimes at 8 o’clock.”
Nazaryeva is from Moscow, with a background in marketing.
She entered the hospitality business after coming to Napier to study winemaking at EIT, and decided on a wine bar when she saw “something missing” in Napier.
She said it may have been something that Napier wasn’t ready for.
“I have been told, ‘if you opened in Auckland you would be counting the numbers’,” she said.
She said she tried, with good times when there was a “culture” of people going on Friday nights, but “no one is coming into the city at night any more”.
She said events such as the city council-backed Night Fiesta, with its food trucks, was competing with local businesses, rather than supporting them.
“I can’t see the next year or two years getting better,” she said, explaining her reasons for getting out.
“But I hope it will get better, for the sake of the businesses that are here, and new business.
“I did every job possible (in the business), but I haven’t had a holiday for six years.”
She hasn’t decided what’s next, but it is understood another operator is set to take over the site.
Teresa Bar proprietors say that, due to personal circumstances, they’ve made the “difficult decision to close our doors.”
But it isn’t a “forever goodbye – just a pause for now", they said in a social media post.
The western end of the CBD had seen the closure of two bar-and-restaurant establishments earlier this year, with Rosie O’Grady’s, in the historic Provincial Hotel building, shut in February and nearby Good George Taphouse following three months later.
Napier City Business Incorporated general manager Pip Thompson said winter had been tough, and businesses have needed to create events, which some had done with success.
She said the fiesta-type events attracted extra people, some with families, needing the variety of fare and cost provided by food trucks.