Pop-up cafe in Whanganui aims to help young people find employment

The pop-up container cafe on Ridgway St will open in November. Photo / Stuart Munro

A pop-up cafe will bring life to a vacant inner-city section this summer but The Common Ground Pop Up will be about more than just coffee.

A container kitted out as a cafe has been moved onto the vacant section on Ridgway St next to the Andersons building and will be a social enterprise venture run by Whanganui's Paul Fletcher.

The cafe will take on young people who will get job skills training with the support of Ministry of Social Development, 100% SWEET (Students in Whanganui, in Education, Employment and Training) and Te Ora Hou.

"Just to give them real on-site work experience, how to work as a team, how to interact with customers," Fletcher said.

The goal is it would lead to employment opportunities.

He said the cafe would open on November 19 and run for six months to start with to "see how it goes".

Any profit at the end will go back into youth projects.

Whanganui District Council's town centre regeneration project manager Ellen Young said the pop-up was a way to improve the town centre in a holistic way.

"It's a beautiful spot," she said. "We jumped right on board because these kind of pop-up spaces create so much vibrancy in town and it's just such a good idea."

Young said the space would continue to evolve and was a good example of a partnership between the council, a private landowner and social enterprise.

Owner David Corney has let the land for free.