Suneeta Kumar dishes up a delicious starter of onion bhajji to invited guests at the opening of Chutney Mary's last Sunday night.
Suneeta Kumar dishes up a delicious starter of onion bhajji to invited guests at the opening of Chutney Mary's last Sunday night.
With 38 inquiries regarding relocation, investment and business information, the Tararua District Council's stand at the Auckland Home Show is paying off.
"This has exceeded all expectations," Lianne Simpkin, the council's economic development and communications manager, told the Dannevirke News.
"We are currently in discussions with the 38 people and that number of interest equates to an average of one interested party giving us their contact details every hour-and-a-half of the show.
Suneeta, Sanjeeta and Sujeeth Kumar at the opening of Chutney Mary's.
"These are good results and doesn't take into account the people who took photos of particular brochures and noted their reference numbers to look at on the web later."
Tararua District mayor Roly Ellis and two council staff, Louise Charlton and Angela Randall manned the stand for 52 hours over five days, 10am to 9pm and Mrs Simpkin said the site received compliments from the managers of the Auckland Home Show, other site holders and event managers who rated it as the best site at the show.
Sujeeth Kumar, watched by his wife Sanjeeta, breaks a coconut in the doorway of Chutney Mary's, an Indian tradition which removes the evils of the building.
"People were very receptive and interested in learning more about Tararua," Mrs Simpkin said. "We gave out 1500 visitor information packs, that's an indication of how many individuals and families we spoke to at the show. And without exception, they all expressed their unhappiness with both the Auckland real estate market and the traffic problems they experienced on a daily basis.
"So we were able to give out a lot of information to an open, receptive audience, promoting our affordable housing, the lack of problem traffic and the ease of travel to big cities, as well as the recreational activities on our doorstep."
Investment opportunities in Tararua were promoted and last week a new Indian restaurant and takeaway business opened on High St, after the owner Sujeeth Kumar decided this was the best place to launch back into business.
"Sujeeth is our latest business entrepreneur in Dannevirke and although he's had a mission getting Chutney Mary's up and running, it's great to see another business in town," Suresh Patel, chairman of the Dannevirke Chamber of Commerce said at last Sunday night's opening. "Sujeeth realises the potential we have here and he will do all right."
Mr Kumar came to New Zealand in 1991 and began working in Wellington and was the first Indian chef in the city.
"I moved to Auckland in 2004 and then when the economy began to get tough I moved to Australia and had a chain of Chutney Mary's restaurants in Queensland, which I ran for 12 years."
Mr Kumar decided to return to New Zealand to retire but found he had been priced out of the Auckland market.
"The house I'd sold 12 years earlier for $350,000 was now $1.5 million, so I moved to Wellington and then to Masterton and, deciding retirement wasn't for me, I began looking for business opportunities."
Setting up a new business in Dannevirke in just over a week has been a mission.
"We're going to be open seven days a week because we can't sit at home, we always work," he said.
And the business will use just homemade sauces, all made by Mr Kumar and his staff.
"There will be no ready-made sauces here," he said.
Other empty business premises are filling up in Dannevirke too - a bed shop at the southern end of High St opens today and a furniture pop-up shop has opened its doors in the old Coin Save building in the middle of High St.
