New Sabel Café opens up in shipping container

Sabel Café on the corner of Airport Road and Ōhaupō Road. Photo/ Supplied

A self-contained shipping container houses the new Sabel Café on the main drag between Te Awamutu and Hamilton.

Sabel Café, located next to Waitomo's Mystery Creek Fuel Stop, opened its doors on July 20.

They provide a New Zealand caffeine kick with Christchurch's Underground Coffee as their bean supplier.

"Opening day was busier than expected which was awesome! Over the week as the word got out, we became busier each day. We are really enjoying the consistency of customers throughout the day," says café manager Claudia Hurford.

Sabel Café is a locally operated family project and took six months to set up which included the six week delay due to Covid-19.

A lot of work had to be done after lockdown, from installing the container and its services to organising products with suppliers and contractors.

"The container café concept was developed to take advantage of a gap in the market with a great location and enable a relatively quick start-up. The goal is to serve great coffee and food to Waitomo customers," says owner Mike Eastwood.

"Also to serve local businesses and provide an easy, accessible coffee stop. With the upcoming business and industrial area around the airport here, it is an opportunity to supply the locals and passing traffic with good coffee and food."

Sabel Café, located next to Waitomo's Mystery Creek Fuel Stop, opened its doors on July 20.

They aim to cater for everyone with several alternative milk choices as well as gluten free, dairy free and vegan food options.

Sabel have partnered with mnyou, an app where people can pre-order coffee and food. This app ensures that customer's food and beverages will be ready on arrival.

"Our aim is to produce consistently good coffee with a friendly smile and keep our price point reasonable for local employees," says Mike.

"We have chosen to partner with Underground Coffee as a point of difference as we really love their blend and our customers do too."

Sabel is open from Monday to Friday, 7am-3pm at the corner of Airport Rd and Ōhaupō Rd.

•For more information, head to their Facebook page Sabel Café or Instagram sabelcafenz

•Head to www.mnyou.co.nz to download the pre-order app.