Mel & Brianna

Mel: I’ve been in the Hokianga for something like thirty-two years. My husband, Julian, grew up here – and now our four kids have, too. The Boatshed Cafe is a bit of an icon in Rawene. I actually worked there under the previous owners and three years ago the opportunity came up to buy it. Bree and I have been running it together since then.

Brianna: I’m from California originally, and I met my partner – Mel’s son – in the States before moving to New Zealand about seven years ago. I was twenty weeks pregnant with my first baby when Mel and Julian bought the cafe, and I came on board right from the beginning. I’ve been an active part of running the business throughout both of my pregnancies now, which has been cool. I used to just be in the background, running the accounts and doing admin, but now I’m in there with Mel in the kitchen as well.

Mel: We get along pretty good. I think we make a really good team – she does all of the stuff that I have no idea how to do, and I do...well, she actually also does all the stuff that I know how to do! But I have absolutely no idea about all that admin stuff, and if it wasn’t for Bree we wouldn’t have even attempted to run a cafe. I had only ever worked in the kitchen and had no experience with the business management side of things. But then Bree came along, and she eats that stuff up for lunch.

Brianna: Mel is definitely the nurturer, the mother. We’re like good cop/bad cop. No one gets nervous when she walks through the door! Whereas I always want to get straight to the point and say what needs to be said, and she’ll say, “Oh, maybe a little bit nicer, maybe we should do it like this.” So we balance each other out in that way. She’s also just naturally a really good cook, with no culinary training or anything. She has a passion for food – she’ll cook all day at work and then come home and cook for her family too.

Mel: I do love cooking, but it’s about the people as much as the food. I love feeding people. I actually love a good potluck – everyone coming together, bringing food that they’ve made to share. I was headhunted by the previous owners of The Boatshed because they knew that I liked to cook. They gave me a try, and I loved it. It was daunting taking over The Boatshed but I was confident we could do a really good job. I wanted to stay true to the vision of the original owners, Craig and Kirsty Joiner. They’re such a cool family and their kids have all been through the cafe, working from when they were teenagers. We’ve actually got one of their granddaughters on staff now. They left big shoes to fill and it took us a while to even think about putting our own spin on things. I was very hesitant, but Bree is great at coming up with new ideas and making us try new things.

Brianna: That’s another difference between us. Mel loves her comfort zone, and I love everything outside it. One of the first things on the list was to make it look like our own place. I’m someone who likes things to be aesthetically pleasing, so as soon as we could afford it, we upgraded all the plates, moved in a velvet couch, put plants everywhere. And we’ve done dinners, we’ve done cocktails, during Covid we started doing deliveries of baking boxes. We added items to the menu like an eggs benny, our kūtai pie and a range of local wines. This summer we’ve been running cantina nights on Saturdays – a pop-up restaurant with Mexican food and margaritas.

Mel: We’re lucky to have some really loyal local customers who come in every morning for their coffee and a brioche or a muffin. We get really busy with tourists over summer as well. For me, the highlight is always when customers tell us that we’re doing a really good job – when they come up to pay and mention that the food was really nice or that they’ve had an awesome time. That’s what it’s all about for me.

Brianna: Like Mel said, it’s important for us to carry on that legacy of how The Boatshed started, a true family business. My partner works there, and so did my sister-in-law until she recently moved to Tauranga. My sister has moved here from the States and she’s working with us now as well. One of my dreams is to see my kids work there, to go full circle from taking over during my first pregnancy to seeing them clearing tables and making coffees. I’m still young and I have a family to raise here in the Hokianga, so I don’t see an end point just yet – we’ll be here for a really long time.

Glossary. Kūtai, mussels.

This story appeared in the Ngahuru Autumn 2023 Edition of Shepherdess.