Kaitaia Four Square owners say goodbye

Anil and Sashi Khatri will leave many friends in Kaitaia when they return to Auckland.

Even in a small town businesses change hands on a regular basis, without great fanfare.

But Anil and Sashi Khatri, who will hand Kaitaia's Four Square over to a new owner at close of business on Saturday, were never going to slip away unnoticed.

The couple, who arrived in Auckland from Fiji 28 years ago, and have spent the last 18 years owning and operating the Four Square store, are returning to Auckland, with no doubts regarding the impression they have made on Kaitaia.

Kaitaia has treated us well. We feel that we've become part of the furniture.

Sashi Khatri

Shayelah Clark-Hobson, Andrea Panther and Renee Davis arrived yesterday morning with flowers, a hamper and a card signed by the local business people, thanking them for all they had done and wishing them well for the future.

Taking the card up one side of the street and down the other had been quite an experience, Ms Clark-Hobson said.

"Everyone wanted to sign it, and they all wanted to tell stories about you," she said when she presented it. "It took all day!"

Ms Clark-Hobson's connection was personal as well as professional. Her family and the Khatris had been neighbours, and she had gone to school with their older daughter, Heena.

The Khatri family had become extremely well-liked and highly regarded, she said, evidenced by the 10 pages of comments, universally positive and expressing sadness that they were leaving, that had been logged on the Happenings in Kaitaia Facebook page.

Mr Khatri said he wasn't sure what the future held. Once they were back in Auckland they would look at their options, but their first priority would be taking a holiday together, for the first time in 18 years. And whatever they ended up doing, retirement wasn't even in the picture.

Their sale of the business will also mark the end of an era in Kaitaia grocery retailing.

The new owner, based in Auckland and already the owner of a business at Taipa, two in Whangarei and two in Auckland, will operate the shop as a dairy, ending the 90-year presence of Four Square.

It is expected to open under new ownership today.

The Far North is unlikely to have seen the last of family though. Mrs Khatri, who has spent much of the last few days accepting hugs from customers, said they would no doubt be back for camping holidays.

They had much to be grateful to Kaitaia for, she added, not least the education their daughters had received at Kaitaia College.

"Kaitaia has treated us well," she said. "We feel that we've become part of the furniture."