New Bakery opened at the pub

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 8, Issue 369, 15 January 1991, Page 7

New Bakery opened at the pub

Joe, the Turoa liftie, has become a baker and gone to the pub. All at the same time.

Richard Taoa, better known in these parts as "Joe", is now operating Ohakune's newest bakery which has been set up in the Ohakune hotel. Rick and Vicky Lowe decided to set up the bakery as a different sort of attraction from the normal for customers to Cleches Bar, which was the lounge bar.of the hotel. The bar is now set up

for people to come in at lunch times and buy fresh baked bread and sit down with a cup of coffee or a beer, or take away some of the variety of speciality breads that are now available. Also on the menu are fresh baked pies and savouries, special sandwiches and a luncheon menu of chicken, whitebait, ham steaks, fish salads or steak all served

with salad or hamburgers (including the towering "Cleches Burger"). Also soon available will be cappuccino coffee once the new cappuccino machine is installed. Joe bakes five days a week at present, Monday to Friday, and the bread is available from 7.30am until 5.30pm though Joe says it sounds like the boss wants him to start earlier - that is traditional bakery hours.

The breads available now include old fashioned Vienna, French sticks, a variety of "knots", croissants, bran muffins, bread rolls, sausage rolls and pies, all baked fresh on the premises. Catering manager Brian Dowsett said the range available is virtually unlimited. "We'll try out different things and just see what people want," he said. The bread is bought in dough form from Yarrows of Manaia (the company that exports croissants to France no less!), Joe then puts the bread dough as it is needed into a proofcr which is a humidity oven which raises the dough ready for baking. Once this process is properly done the bread is baked. Yarrows trained Joe in the process at Palmerston North then a representative of the company came to Ohakune to hclp him seltle into the system. From 22 January Joe will be baking Sunday mornings and then people will be able to wander down-town, buy a Sunday paper from the dairy, some bread and sit down in the sun with a cappuccino, said Brian.