Richard Hanning - From legendary roots to hotel hoots

His name may have been synonymous with Queenstown’s renowned Gourmet Express Restaurant for 25 years, but Richard Hanning also worked his way up through the ranks as a teenage apprentice for leading national hotel chains.

He’s survived mafia surveillance and threats as hotel house manager in Auckland, forced to sack a few light-fingered staff, including a chef siphoning off chickens to raffle at the pub. Richard learned fast, earning his first general manager’s role at Vacation Hotel Queenstown in 1978, fresh from being house manager at Vacation Frankton, landing him back among legendary family roots.

The grandson of John(‘Jubilee’) McBride, of McBride Street fame, who’d owned the General Merchant Store, Richard’s parents moved to Riverton, then Invercargill where he was born in 1953.

One of nine kids, holidays and some early schooling were spent in Queenstown at St Joseph’s while his mum cared for his well-known Auntie Fran (Frances McBride) who’d been unwell.

“We’d set up forts on Queenstown Hill and make stone rifles, causing havoc with sightseeing tourists, until the local cop snuck up behind us once and gave us a dressing down,” Richard grins.

Rugby and cricket were big before Richard, who loved cooking, joined THC as a trainee manager in Milford Sound at 16. It was an education with the ‘hardy drinker’ fishermen packing into the public bar during bad weather. “They’d then try to step from the wharf back onto their boats and land in the water.”

He’d missed the 15-year-old cut off for apprentice chefs but was soon packing his Mini with fresh rhubarb from the Hanning’s Invercargill garden for the delighted Milford chef, in exchange for the equivalent weight in crayfish. He’d arrive, rhubarb protruding from his car windows.

Practical jokes were the norm – crumbed Wettex cloth replacing schnitzel on the Milford staff menu. Barely 18, Richard copied the head chef once, dabbing oil beneath the burner on the big diesel stove. “I blew the top plate off the stove hitting the roof!”

From flights to Quintin Lodge on the Milford Track with supplies to pick-ups at Sandfly Bay doused in Dimp, it was then on to London City and Guilds chef exams in Dunedin, before a stint at THC Waitangi where Richard clocked a 22-hour shift one New Year’s Day. Kenny Rogers and the First Edition once partied late in their staff quarters, Richard sharing a whisky with Kenny.

THC’s Wairakei Resort followed before Richard, close to burnout, took leave to Auckland, working at the prestigious ‘Michael’s Caprice’ on the North Shore with legendary, high-end European chef Michael Marcinkowski – an Auschwitz survivor. “Rolls Royces dropped our very affluent customers to the door. We made some good tips,” he says.

A chance meeting then scored him a job at Logan Park Vacation Hotel in Auckland’s Greenlane.

Richard became a marked man after dismissing a female staff member. “Her boyfriend was in the local mafia and threatened me in the toilets, saying, ‘She’ll be back in tomorrow night’.” Police files showed he was a hit man. “The night porter would give me the heads up as he’d be waiting outside, and I’d have to stay in the hotel.”

Entertainment was big during a stint in Rotorua, the Maori Volcanics and Billy T. James drawing the crowds.

House manager at Vacation Hotel Frankton, Richard turned those events skills to Ski Week, attracting big gigs, and joining early founders of the Queenstown Winter Festival in 1975.

He soon scored his first general manager’s role at Vacation Queenstown. Vacation always ran the festival Swiss Night, popular with ski instructors. Richard was a representative on the National Travel Association’s inaugural board and on the Queenstown Promotion Board, then DQ, for many years.

In 1981 he and Vacation chef Josef Kobele opened Queenstown’s first American-style diner Gourmet Express, its pancakes ($2.95) and Miner’s Breakfasts ($3.95) an instant success. In three months, we’d turned over what we’d budgeted for with the bank for a year.”

Invited by Mount Cook managing director Philip Phillips to establish the Coronet Peak skifield restaurants as well, his day began around 4.30am and ended at 11pm. On a US exploration trip with Sugar Robinson, they narrowly escaped an out-of-control semi-trailer unit roaring towards them on an icy Colorado freeway.

Sue and Richard bought Josef and wife Shirley out in 1995, running Gourmet Express for another 14 years – 25 in all – with ‘Billy T’ and Barry Crump big fan regulars.

They became in-demand catering consultants, also catering on movie sets, and sponsoring many community events.

Teaming with Kawarau Jet for Gourmet Express kids’ birthday parties – a jetboat ride thrown in, they extended this offer to local schools for free. Richard also served on the St Joseph’s School board for nine years.

That community service continued in Dunedin where the Hannings operated 555 on Bayview Motel for 12 years, Richard serving on the Otago Motel Association Board.

Now living near Rangiora, they’re big supporters of Pound Paws Dog Rescue.