"Cafe de Kerb" to change Ohakune's late-night scene

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 3, Issue 44, 15 April 1986, Page 2

"Cafe de Kerb" to change Ohakune's late-night scene

Those who get a little peckish late at night will soon have somewhere to go to satisfy their stomachs. Brian Dowsett is to open a pie cart, called 'Cafe de Kerb', outside Ohakune's Lovin' Spoonful restaurant which he has recently bought. He will be leasing out the restaurant soon, and hopes to open the pie cart, which is really a modified caravan, over Queen's Birthday weekend in early June. Brian and his wife Cynthia are running the restaurant in the meantime, They opened on Good Friday, they day after buying it! The restaurant was previously owned by the Mayor of Ohakune, Bill Taylor,

Ellen Gould of Ohakune and Nick Heesterman, who now lives in Hawkes Bay. They ran the restaurant for three seasons from 1981. Brian Dowsett leased the Lovin' Spoonful until the middle of last year, and more recently it has been run by sisters Anthea Tidswell and Elena Wright of National Park. Since his time at the restaurant Brian has been building Lockwood houses in Ohakune. The Lovin' Spoonful is now open seven nights a week and the menu changes weekly.

Brian believes the restaurant and pie cart will complement each other rather than compete. "You don't get all dressed up to go out to dinner then stand on the footpath and eat a pie!" he said. The pie cart will sell pies, hot dogs and chips, among other foods, and will open from about 4pm until around midnight. On Fridays Brian thinks he will stay open until about 2am. Brian believes there has never been a late eating place of this kind in Ohakune before but thinks there is a demand for it.