He had also asked what he needed to do to sign up - which was what Mr Huff brought up when he later let him in.
"I said to him if he wanted to sign up we'd have to do it quickly as it was closing time - and then he said 'No I don't'."
Mr Huff said his suspicions nagged again.
The man then said he was waiting for his girlfriend to arrive and stepped outside briefly before returning - handing Mr Huff a note and asking "Do you have these movies?"
But the first words Mr Huff read were: This is a robbery - I'm holding a knife.
"I looked down and there did appear to be a knife there."
The man told him to open the safe but Mr Huff told him he could not as it was a self-locking unit which staff could not open.
So he demanded the float money from the till, which Mr Huff said was not a lot.
He then told Mr Huff to open the electronic doors for him and he casually walked out.
"I walked out after him and he ran off up toward Anderson Park - I went straight back in and called 111 then went out to see where he was but he'd gone."
While slightly rattled by what had happened he said yesterday he was "sweet as" and happy to get back to work. "Nothing happened to me - life goes on."
While never the target of a robbery before he said he had worked in bottle stores and struck incidents where he had been forced to confront people stealing liquor.
Detective John McGregor said the offender was a dark-skinned male Maori, about 1.7m (5 feet 8) tall and of stocky build. He was wearing black thick-framed sunglasses, a white or grey hoodie, a dark top underneath the hoodie, a grey bandanna and long black pants. He was also wearing yellow or cream gloves.
Mr McGregor said police were keen to speak to anyone who had any information about the robbery, and also appealed for sightings of the man in the Gloucester St/Anderson Park area last night.
"This is a relatively busy corner in Greenmeadows so we're hoping someone may have seen this person either earlier in the night around 7.30pm or later when the robbery occurred. Luckily we were able to get quite specific descriptions of his clothing so hopefully someone will recognise these and provide us with some useful information."
Anyone with information can contact Mr McGregor at HB Police on 06 831 0700.