Faigan’s Cafe and Store’s new owners Juanita Garden and husband Mike Tan held a "soft" opening of their restaurant and cafe at Millers Flat last Saturday night.
They invited about 40 people, including contractors and Millers Flat residents, to thank them for their help and support. The store had, until last year, been a grocery shop that serviced Millers Flat and surrounding areas, and was run by a community trust.
However, it closed in May last year after Foodstuffs withdrew its Four Square franchise.
The couple bought it in August and since then have been working hard to turn it into a cafe and restaurant. Among the guests were Betty Adams and Jude Omond, both of Millers Flat.
Mrs Adams said that when she was a child, a doctor worked in one of the shop’s rooms.
"I remember having a tooth pulled without anaesthetic," she said.
Mrs Omond was the store’s manager in the 1990s, and she was delighted when she spotted a familiar old clock that had told time for many years still on the wall.
The back rooms still had shelving for product. Mrs Omond spent hours there weighing and measuring. And there was still pigeon hole shelving for carriage bolts, with labels for the different sizes attached.
Mr Tan said he and Eion Garden had spent many hours removing rimu timber planks, denailing them and recycling into the highly polished tables.
Old boxes with product labelling had also been recycled into features on the walls.
The contractors found a 1907 penny, and a World War 2 poster stuck to a wall, which were presented to the new owners.
Mr Tan said Faigan’s would continue to be an important feature of the Millers Flat community.
"It is all about the community," he said.
