Source: Radio New Zealand
Popular Wellington café, Chocolate Fish, is set to close on Sunday.
Café owners John and Penny Pennington like to think of the Chocolate Fish Café, as somewhat of a Mirimar institution. Operating since 1997, it had been at its current site since 2009.
Located at Shelly Bay, John said part of the cafe’s attraction was that it had space for kids to run around, free parking and “pretty good” food.
Chocolate Fish Cafe owners John and Penny Pennington. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
This month the cafe looked a little different however, with price tags littering the room with everything from the chairs and tables to the cutlery on sale.
“Because we’ve been terminated and don’t have anything to sell, and of course we’ve got a bit of debt and that sort of thing, and nowhere to go, we decided, right, we’d turn January, our last month of trading, into a garage sale,” John said.
Penny said it was devastating to have to close.
John said the café had a big client-base that ranged from regular locals to tour groups and people who specifically come out to Shelly Bay to go to their cafe.
Penny said the café had been described as being a hub of the community.
“We love coming to work every day because it’s like coming and seeing your friends, your whanau, and it’s just wonderful.”
Why is the café closing?
The Chocolate Fish cafe. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The cafe site was brought by Sir Peter Jackson and Dame Fran Walsh in 2023.
It had followed a rocky few years at Shelly Bay, with a planned controversial housing development spearheaded by the Wellington company which was later scrapped, and a fire which gutted the iconic Sawtooth building and forced the Chocolate Fish to relocate for months due to asbestos risk.
John said they thought they had won the Lotto when Sire Peter and Dame Fran purchased it.
“Everything was tracking so positively for us being able to continue on,” Penny said.
“To have that suddenly wiped out, that’s been a very bitter pill. We’re more than a café, we’re a bit of an institution,” John added.
The outside of the café. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
WingNut PM, the property arm of Jackson and Walsh’s WingNut Group, told the Penningtons at the end of September it was terminating the lease. The pair initially publicly criticised the pair for the decision, but later walked the comments back.
At the time, WingNut PM told RNZ the owners had been aware the original Submarine Barracks required “substantial remedial work”, including replacing the roof, restoring its historic frontage, interior renovations, applying a new coat of paint to the exterior, and temporarily closing the parking area for tar-sealing.
The spokesperson said they had been in discussions with the Penningtons for the past year about its pending closure.
WingNut PM declined RNZ’s request for comment on this story.
Not likely to be another Chocolate Fish
The Penningtons explored other options, but a site as big as theirs was hard to come by. So far they had not found another space like it, although Penny said they would keep looking.
“I don’t see a Chocolate Fish to this degree ever happening again, sadly – it’s a huge space.”
Chocolate Fish Café closed its kitchen in late December, and John said it some ways it was now a relief to fully close.
“The menu has been quite small, and people trying to come out for that last fish sandwich have been disappointed.”
Coupled with poor summer weather, he said it had been “a little bit depressing”.
Their final message to their customers: “We’ve loved having you.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
