New business: From Auckland milk and cookies to Rotorua dumplings

Peter and Cissy Yang. Photo/Stephen Parker

A two-day holiday was all it took to convince Peter Yang to ditch Auckland and move to Rotorua.

Mr Yang has spent the better part of his life living in big cities and says he fell in love with Rotorua for its beauty, its slower pace and its lack of traffic jams.

"My wife and I returned to Auckland after our holiday, packed our bags and hoped our real estate agent would come up with something great," Mr Yang said.

"In recent Auckland times I have been managing the Moustache milk and cookies bar, which my daughter owns, but I have always wanted to open a dumpling and noodle restaurant."

And in Rotorua, Ray White's Conor McEvoy was thinking outside the square and came up with an ideal building.

"There's a place on Hinemoa St that was formerly a Korean karaoke bar. After a drop in Korean tourists the place closed and has been vacant for a couple of years," Mr McEvoy said. "I hadn't started to market it but thought it would be ideal."

Mr Yang agreed and the past two months have been spent elbow-deep in the dust and debris of the former bar.

"It needed quite a bit of work. Actually I'm surprised we were able to accomplish as much as we have."

With an estimated two weeks until opening, Mr Yang admits he is quite nervous.

"With cookies you can do a lot of the work before and after business hours. We want everything to be freshly cooked so it's a bit different. Our aim is quality food so we want everything to be perfect."

Of the move to Rotorua, Mr Yang said he wished he did it years ago.

Mr McEvoy said, as a commercial real estate agent, he was seeing more and more businesspeople relocating to Rotorua.

"It's not just Aucklanders, it is people from Tauranga and Hamilton considering Rotorua as a serious option."