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Bach on Breakwater Scoop Branding AwardThis article featured in the Taranaki Daily News
Wine bar weathers storms and wins It's hard to imagine a more ideal location for a restaurant and wine bar. Perched on the water's edge on the eastern side of Port Taranaki, it is situated in an area the port company itself has named and promoted as Cappuccino Corner, in an effort to attract more lifestyle-oriented businesses there. When you look out towards the sea, to the left there's a view right across the harbour to the busy port operational area, to the centre there's the boat ramp used by all the recreational boaties, and to the right, there's the large public carpark at the base of the lee breakwater. And over on the other side of the carpark there's the beginning - or the end, depending on which way you're walking - of New Pymouth's famous coastal walkway. So it's the ideal location for a restaurant, all right. It promises to get even better too, because there are proposals for the harbour area right in front of the facility to be developed into a full-scale marina. If that multimillion-dollar project goes ahead, Cappuccino Corner will become even more of a destination than it is now. So life is sweet for the rustic- looking cafe and restaurant, which appropriately is called Bach On Breakwater, and its owner, Barbara Olsen-Henderson. At this year's Taranaki Business Awards, the business received a number of honours. Not only did it win the Brand, Marketing, Design and Technology Award, but it also gained a commended in the Employer of Choice Award, and a highly-commended in the Environment and Sustainability Awareness Award. But while awards can be regarded as the icing on the cake for good business planning and effort, things haven't always been so good. The tale leading to the success of Bach On Breakwater is one of heavy financial pressures, disastrous staff choices, and immense mental strain. But it also underlines the value of proper strategic planning, backed up by good staff - and an undying belief that a business can be made to work. Barbara Olsen-Henderson had her first taste of the cafe and restaurant lifestyle when she was living in Stratford 15 years ago and her friends opened the Backstage Cafe. She'd already developed a reputation for her cooking, primarily through baking for church functions, so her friends asked her if she could be their chef. Barbara Olsen-Henderson said no, so they hired someone else. But shortly after the cafe's official opening, Barbara's friends pleaded with her to give the cook lessons. "So I did - but the cook left soon after, and I ended up going in at nights to cook, as well as continuing with my day job as an artificial breeding technician. And I was still milking our house cow. It was hard work," she recalls. That came to an end when Barbara's friends sold the Stratford business. At roughly the same time, the McFarlane's restaurant was being opened at Inglewood. It advertised for a dessert chef, so Barbara applied. "We had a really good interview, and I was offered the job. I turned it down, and was then asked if I was interested in managing the McFarlane's franchise in Feilding," she recalls. "I thought to myself that if they thought I was that good, then maybe I should go into business myself." So she did. She took out a lease of a former chemist's shop in the second floor of Centre City and opened the Yello Cafe. It all happened very quickly - only six weeks passed from the time she obtained the lease until she opened the doors on May 17, 1996. Yello Cafe was an instant success, attracting large numbers of customers intent on sampling what was on offer in the food cabinet. That success led Barbara Olsen- Henderson to decide to open a second cafe somewhere else in the city. Initially she investigated eastern New Plymouth where The Links residential development is now, but then her gaze focused on Port Taranaki. "I had lunch at Chaddy's, and although the restaurant wasn't my cup of tea, I thought the location was wonderful. I phoned the port company's business development manager Jon Hacon and asked him if there were any spots for lease - and he said there were." "So we met at 3pm that day. Initially he showed me a location quite close to the boat ramp, but then we settled on a spot a bit closer to the other buildings there." Barbara Olsen-Henderson quickly moved into stride, creating her new cafe and restaurant which she named Bach On Breakwater, but at the same time troubles began developing at the Yello Cafe. It all revolved around cost - Centre City had changed hands, and the new owners were increasing shop space rentals. At the same time Pak 'n Save supermarket had built new premises and moved out of the shopping centre, and this had caused a 40 per cent reduction in foot traffic at Centre City. "In the restaurant business, overheads should be 6 per cent of turnover. In Centre City, 12 per cent still made money - but the costs kept creeping up until the overheads got to 20 per cent of my turnover," recalls Barbara. "So things reached the stage where the business wasn't making money, and for that reason I couldn't sell it either. "Not only that, but I wasn't allowed to close down before the lease ran out because there were some pretty severe penalty clauses." Things weren't going well down at the Bach On Breakwater, either. News that the cafe and other restaurants and food outlets were being developed along the port's eastern side had created heavy public anticipation, and this had put pressure on Barbara to open as soon as possible. In contrast to her hands-on involvement in running the Yello Cafe when it had first opened, with Bach On Breakwater she had decided to have no role on the floor and to hire professionals instead. However it quickly turned out that her daytime chef wasn't a chef and had to be sacked after three days, her supervisor couldn't cope and had a breakdown after just four days, and her sous chef asked for pay in advance so he could pay a bond for a flat - and then did a runner. "It was awful," she recalls. "We had people queuing up to be served at the Bach and we weren't able to cope. Meanwhile we had the financial troubles at the Yello Cafe. I felt pissed off and powerless - I remember sitting at the breakfast table before work, crying, virtually every day." Something had to give, and Barbara decided it would be the Yello Cafe. On January 17 last year she closed the cafe five months before the lease was due to run out, in the knowledge that she stood to be fined $100 an hour for every hour the business was supposed to operate over that five months - a penalty of around $240,000. As it turned out the negotiated penalty wasn't that much, but it was a substantial amount all the same and far more than the Yello Cafe would have lost if it had remained open. But importantly, what the closure did do was allow Barbara to clear the proverbial decks, transfer all her staff from the Yello Cafe to Bach On Breakwater, and concentrate on improving service so the new business could be a success. Initially that effort saw Barbara spending far more time at the premises than she had originally intended, but that has now eased back thanks to the quality of her 20 staff. And that quality has also allowed business to grow to the extent it now earns far more than the Yello Cafe ever did at Centre City - which has surprised Barbara a little, considering Port Taranaki is a quite out-of-the-way destination compared to a shopping centre. "And while we also initially thought that our evening restaurant business would earn more than our daytime cafe operation, what has happened is that our day business far exceeds our nights," she says. Barbara Olsen-Henderson's experience in trying to operate two cafes at once has taught her some valuable lessons. Good staff are extremely important, and a business should do its utmost to keep them, she says. But it's also important for a business owner to be fully involved in running the operation, particularly at the start. "And I think if I had the chance to start Bach On Breakwater all over again, I think I'd have a 'soft' opening," she says. "You can put far too much pressure on yourself and your business otherwise."
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