Digging deep for cyclone ravaged north
The hearts of Queenstown hospitality operators have been moved with compassion for those in the north left in the fall-out of the recent devastating floods and Cyclone Gabrielle.
Many have already joined a national Emergency DineAid Appeal launched nationwide from Auckland with the hope of collectively raising more than $200,000 for the Government Emergency Relief Fund.
In another initiative Sky City’s local Wild Thyme Restaurant generously gave all of Friday’s food takings to the appeal, with the total likely to be known by Tuesday.
“We hope to raise at least a couple of thousand dollars,” says general manager Jono Brown. The company is donating everything spent on food in its restaurant that day. “If a meal costs $20 we’re donating the lot,” days Jono. It was a last minute move and customers had been steady at the 80-seater restaurant throughout the day, but they felt they needed to do something to help.
“The need is just exorbitant, more than we can fathom. It’s so sad, just awful,” he says.
DineAid NZ founder, highly-decorated international Kiwi chef Mark Gregory agrees and says they’ve already got between 150 and 200 restaurants, cafes and eateries around the country on board with the appeal.
From Logan Brown in Wellington and The Grove in Auckland to Aosta in Arrowtown, more and more eateries, from the simplest of cafes to the most highly ranked fine dining restaurants, are putting up their hands to help, says Mark. Queenstown’s Cookie Time is even on board.
Despite having just come out of a trying few years, local hospitality hearts have been moved to help fellow Kiwis in what is an astronomical clean up and recovery operation.
By Friday evening 15 local restaurants and eateries had confirmed with more confirming every day, says Mark. This appeal doesn’t cost the business any money. There’s just a service team task involved.
Blue Kanu owner Karen Hattaway is a big southern supporter of DineAid and will be leading the charge when the appeal is officially launched locally from Monday (February 28).
Customers will have the choice to add either $2 or $3 per table to their bill, or add $1 onto one special dish on their menu, or offer a coin bowl or box to collect donations.
Already the list includes Blue Kanu, Aosta, Little Aosta, The Bathhouse, Wolf Hospitality’s Brazz, London, Pier, Boardwalk and The Crown, and Republic’s nine establishments including Winnies and Ballarat. Other major players in Queenstown’s restaurant and café industry are expected to get on board. Karen’s hoping local bars can work out some sort of system to contribute too.
“We’d love to see as many local operators on board as possible,” she says. “We appreciate people here are still recovering from the effects of Covid restrictions but we’re hoping as many as possible can help.”
“It’s a very simple and easy way to help with so much devastation in the cyclone regions,” says Karen. “We’re asking that all restaurants participate and we’re looking forward to raising those much-needed funds.”
There are some 270 restaurants and eateries in the Queenstown Lakes, Central Otago region. Republic CEO and director Blair Impey says they’re absolutely behind the move and keen to support anything that helps the cyclone-ravaged north.
Mark first got the idea for DineAid, which has raised almost $1 million for good causes in 10 years, after returning from London where he worked with some of the world’s most elite chefs for 20 years. He was part of a similar Christmas appeal there raising money to help feed the homeless during winter. That was founded by Marco Pierre White, who trained Gordon Ramsay.
Other local initiatives are emerging to help cyclone-affected areas. Jono says Sky City nationally is planning a dinner fundraiser for its venues around the country on March 20. That’s likely to be a per head dinner with all proceeds from the night going to the appeal.
His Millbrook cricket team is also holding a big fundraiser next Sunday while the NZ Open is on. The local team, dubbed ‘The Southland Development Squad’ does an annual cricket exchange with a similar Gisborne team. They’ll be playing cricket non-stop for 12 hours at the Millbrook ground and, through sponsorship, hope to raise between $11,000 and $12,000 between the 12 of them. Donations will also be collected on the day.
