Karen Hattaway - From trauma to triumph - Turning it all around for good

She’s owned and operated seven restaurants and bars in a career spanning more than 30 years – a multi-tasking maestro, managing to maintain a calm, welcoming smile while juggling multiple hospo roles.

As a young Southland hairdresser, Karen Hattaway discovered her passion for hospitality while working in her then ‘dream job’ – an educator for haircare brand De Lorenzo in Auckland. “I loved it,” she says. “I was presenting on stage cutting and colouring with loads of travel.”

Opening one of her first restaurants with Grant Hattaway - Zanzibar in Auckland’s Grey Lynn in the 1990s, Karen, also a talented jazz singer, quickly learned how to juggle multiple roles.

“I’d be doing the dishes, cleaning toilets, cooking, waiting tables and entertaining all at the same time,” she laughs.

“I used to sing jazz to get people in the door. I’d take an order, pull a microphone out of my apron pocket, sing, then put it back and deliver the food.

“I remember singing Summertime then cutting halfway through the song to say, ‘Is that medium rare or rare, Sir?’ “That was normal,” she grins. They were crazy times but so much fun.”

Karen says she built her hospitality career from the ground up through “sheer hard work”.

“We didn’t have a lot of money when I was little and I’m proud of what I’ve created from small beginnings.

“I was a child shaped by trauma. I understand what it feels like when systems fail to protect you. I understand the long shadow that sexual violence and silence can cast over a life,” she says.

A Māori girl adopted into a Pākehā family, she grew up feeling different, without always knowing why.

Karen says that experience didn’t break her it built her.

Now an award-winning restaurateur and businesswoman, she says hers is a story about resilience, reinvention, and a woman who has decided that hospitality can and should do more.

“My trauma has certainly shaped me but built resilience and strength, also taught me empathy and how to set boundaries,” she says.

As a creative young woman, she loved local theatre and had attended seminars with director Doug Kamo in Queenstown. “It opened the door of confidence for me.”

Lured to Queenstown by a love of skiing in 2001, she and Grant opened Tatler Restaurant just 11 days before the world changed with the September 11 attacks.

“It was a nerve-racking time. We didn’t know what tourism would look like.” As it turned out, New Zealand became viewed as a safe haven.

It was normal to do 17-hour days, sometimes pushing 100-hour weeks. Tatler was followed by Captains Restaurant, then Pier 19, and later the iconic Blue Kanu in 2014.

“It was organised chaos,” she says. “But I loved it.”

“My idea of hospitality when I started was a lovely glass of wine and a chat, making people feel welcome. I had no idea that I’d be cleaning toilets at 1am, and cleaning floors,” she says. “Luckily, I was a southern girl. I didn’t mind working hard. My mum always said, ‘Never ask anyone to do work that you wouldn’t do yourself’. I’ve carried that with me through all the restaurants.”

Hattaway moved to Christchurch upon launching her latest venture, Manu, in 2024. Only open 17 months, Manu – Māori, Pacific and Asian fusion cuisine, has already been Number 1 Christchurch restaurant on Trip Advisor for the last 10 months.

Karen’s now using Manu, which she’s franchising nationally, as a platform from which to make positive change for the safety of women, designing flexible silicon drink protectors to deter drink spiking, giving them out for free to customers and locals.

“For the cost of a cocktail garnish, we can give these out for free. So why wouldn’t we?”

She’s working alongside Christchurch City Council’s liquor licensing department and Aviva to push for wider adoption of these across the industry, using her platform to make sure others feel safer than she once did. She’s also been working with Te Whatu Ora on preventing sexual harm.

“Hospitality should be about joy. This isn’t about fear, but empowerment,” she says.

“It’s our duty as operators to be proactive, not reactive. It’s about normalising protection, not shaming vulnerability.”

Karen’s now increasingly in demand as a speaker, sharing her story with women’s groups and conferences across the country, and empowering women who’ve suffered severe trauma, encouraging them to “take back the power in their lives”.

“Hopefully I can make a difference because of the depth behind my story,” she says.

Karen’s also been involved with Impact 100 and the Inspirational Women Awards in Queenstown.

She’s now begun writing a book, one she promises will be “funny, sad, realistic, with a few don’ts”.

In Manu, her latest venture, she’s full of praise for her “incredible support team” – operations manager Marata Cooney and partner John Nicholson for their unshakeable belief in Manu. “I’m very blessed.”

Karen still loves the floor.

“I can still get out there, make people laugh, tell stories around food and wine. That’s what I love. I genuinely love hospitality.”