Restoring past glory

Broadway Tearooms & Bakery

The Broadway Tearooms & Bakery has been part of Reefton since its beginnings. It has served the miners and their families for close to 150 years.

Ronnie Buckman says: “DWC has been alongside us since we purchased the business, initially as part of the Reefton shop front project upgrade where we rebuilt the shop’s facade and gave back its heritage finish – which involved removing aluminium windows reinstating with wooden ones and stained glass and replacing the veranda poles with wooden posts.”

“We have upgraded the majority of the shop, including the roof, floor, piles, wiring and plumbing but were unable to access further funding to install public toilets and do the much-needed upgrade to the bakery and kitchen area. Fortunately, John Bougen’s team and Retail Solutions assisted us with the public toilets and bakery, and we were again fortunate that DWC approved borrowing for the kitchen – enabling us to ‘finish’ the building upgrade.”

Ronnie and the team at Broadway Tearooms & Bakery have utilised a variety of DWC business support services over the years.

“We’ve used the business mentor programme and continue to take training and business opportunities that are offered. The most recent being our two managers, Toni Bang and Crystal Koti, who joined the 2019 DWC Leadership Programme.

“RBP vouchers through DWC assisted Toni and Crystal onto the programme and most recently business planning assistance which has helped us look at how we can move forward during and following COVID-19."