Friends quit Farmers to create Whanganui's newest cafe, Cinnamonui

Paula Theron, Fiona Hannah and Kelly McIntyre are bringing a bit of an old-fashioned and fun feel to Cinnamonui with their polka dot theme and speciality scrolls. Photo / Jesse King

The name of the Whanganui's newest cafe is derived from its signature dish and the city itself.

Cinnamonui is the creation of Fiona Hannah and Paula Theron who decided to quit their jobs as managers at Farmers when sales of their cinnamon scrolls skyrocketed.

Located between Spice Guru and Jolt Cafe on Victoria Ave, Cinnamonui was open to friends and family on Monday, but will officially open at 7am on Tuesday.

Hannah said the idea to run their own cafe started formulating when they needed to raise some extra funds for a trip to South Africa.

"We'd been doing a bit of hobby baking, so we'd bake our cinnamon scrolls on a Friday and then we started taking them to the market," she said.

"The feedback was so positive, in fact one of the ladies here today, she came down and brought a scroll on our first day and she's been there every week since."

In the early stages, Cinnamonui will be open every day of the week from 7am until 4pm as Hannah and Theron become accustomed to the industry.

While Theron is more a baker of sweets, Hannah will make savoury dishes such as paninis and Kelly McIntyre has been hired as a barista.

Hannah and Theron have been selling their scrolls at the Whanganui River Market for about 12 weeks now, but decided back in November that they wanted to do it full time.

"Neither of us has worked in a cafe before, so it's quite a leap of faith, but the Whanganui public are great and they have been very supportive of us," Hannah said.

"We tried really hard to get the dough for our scrolls just perfect. It took us quite a few weeks and we put many kilos on doing it, but we're happy with our product."

The like-minded friends chose a red and white polkadot theme for their cafe, represented by the uniforms they wear, to make it feel old-fashioned and fun.

They are awaiting the arrival of a deep fryer for chips and wedges and once they are established, flavours such as apple and pecan might appear as specialty scrolls.

"We're here next to two other really good coffee places, but we want to compliment what they've got by being kind of different," Hannah said.

"Support from people walking past as we've been painting and putting the sign up on the window has been great... we bake a lot better than we can put signs up by the way."