Rotorua icon Wimpy for sale

Iconic Rotorua restaurant Wimpy is for sale with hopes a new owner will give it a much needed revamp.

The restaurant, at the Central Mall end of Tutanekai St, has been in Rotorua for 32 years and is now the only Wimpy left in New Zealand.

United Kingdom-born owner Nick Baylis said he bought the restaurant four and a half years ago because he had a dream of opening a chain of Wimpy restaurants throughout New Zealand. But the Auckland-based man said it had become too difficult financially to run the business without being a hands-on owner. He said the business was still profitable, despite a tough market with new restaurants such as McDonald's and Burger King. The turnover was about the same as it was five years ago, but it was time for a new owner to come in and hopefully modernise it, he said. "Turnover hasn't gone down but my costs have gone up. It has a very steady customer base but it needs renovating."

Selling the restaurant isn't the end of Mr Baylis' dream of owning a chain of Wimpy restaurants - with the sale price of $59,000 excluding the brand name Wimpy. "I'm selling it for about half of what I paid for it because I am going to keep the brand." He hopes to open two or three Wimpy restaurants within the next five to 10 years and set up a franchise system. Wimpy is the brand name of a chain of hamburger restaurants that started in the United Kingdom in the 1930s, inspired by the character of J Wellington Wimpy from the Popeye cartoons.

The Wimpy name in Rotorua has got an interesting history of its own. Mr Baylis said the former owner took Wimpy UK to court about six years ago to retain the right to keep the name.

He asked the other dozen Wimpy restaurants to join him in the legal battle but they declined. The Rotorua owner won the case.

Because the other Wimpy restaurants in New Zealand weren't part of the court case, they had to change their names, Mr Baylis said.

Wimpy Rotorua manager Greta Wright has worked at Wimpy for 14 and half years and would like to carry on under a new owner. "This place is an icon. We get a lot of elderly couples who come in and order the same thing."