Bakery business no piece of cake

The new owner of Cactus Creme cafe plans to add healthy foods to the menu and make it profitable.

Phealong Seur bought the cafe in Wanganui's Victoria Ave last month. He said at present profitability was "just hanging in the balance".

He's been thinking about how to improve it and would like to add a choose-your-own-filling salad bar for sandwiches and potatoes, while keeping the standard pie/cake/sandwich and cooked meal offerings going as well.

He noticed the popularity of healthy food options while travelling in Australia and elsewhere in New Zealand, and said there was nothing similar in Wanganui.

The Cactus Creme name is probably a keeper and he has kept two of the cafe's part-time staff and is waiting for the landlord's approval to change the cafe's windows.

"It's not really appealing the way it is at the moment. We want it to be more appealing to the customer."

Mr Seur and his nephew have owned Cafe 141, in one of the avenue's middle blocks, for two years. The pies for the Cactus Creme would be baked there, in premises behind the cafe.

He came to New Zealand from Cambodia in 1998, and his family was poor. He learned to cook in a friend's bakery in Masterton.

"I've got a lot of friends in that kind of business. Some are doing really good, and some don't."

He said he had never lasted long working for other people.

Since arriving in Wanganui he's been working about 12 hours a day, seven days a week. He starts at five or six in the morning and works in the eateries until 4.30 in the afternoon - but that's not the finish.

"We've still got to do a bit of shopping and preparation for the next day. There's no time to go home and cook, I'm too tired."

He was hoping to pay off debt, and take it easier later.

"For now I just sort of have to cope with it. It's always hard in the beginning."

New Zealand offered lots of opportunity to people who were willing to work, he said.