A Wellington cafe is offering customers the chance to save money by using a little bit of te reo Māori - something which could help the normalisation of the language.
For te reo speakers, going out for lunch often means leaving a language bubble - but as te reo gradually becomes more normalised, cafes and restaurants could become spaces where hearing the language is common.
Karaka Cafe on Wellington’s waterfront offered customers a chance to knock 10% off the price of their meal during Te Wiki o te Reo Māori.
The cafe is owned by well-known Wellington hospitality couple Paul and Keri Ritemanu, whose seven children whakapapa to Ngāpuhi, Tuwharetoa and Samoa.
All they had to do was say a te reo phrase when paying: “Tēnā koa poroa te tekau paihēneti o te utu”, or “Please trim 10% off the price”.
Cafe manager Cam Cuff said this was the first year the cafe had run the promotion for Te Wiki o te Reo Māori but it had been trying to promote te reo to customers and staff.
“We’ve had a lot of customers come in and give it a go and it’s been really, really interesting. We’ve had all kinds of people give it a go, we’ve had foreigners, we’ve had tourists, we’ve had people who only speak a little bit of English give it a go.
“I would say for this week 70% of our customers have wanted to give it a go.”
Plenty of tourists have given it a go, perhaps even more than New Zealanders, Cuff said.
The Karaka Cafe in Wellington. Photo / RNZ / Pokere Paewai
He said no one had tried to game the system by asking for a discount of rima tekau paihēneti (50%) yet.
“No one has yet tried to pull us on that one. There has been groups that will put forward their Māori person to come and offer for the group but we are very strict on saying if everyone wants to get [the discount] everyone’s got to give it a go.”
Only a small percentage of customers speak te reo but the discount provides customers the chance to try it out, he said.
Karaka Cafe is looking to use the campaign to slingshot the use of te reo in store, with staff pushing to increase the use of te reo, he said.
Staff will say kia ora and mōrena more than hello and good morning and the menus are bilingual as well.
“Even outside Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori people are ordering the Māori option off the menu before even ordering the English.”
