Remedy’s designer wall had to go
Statement art not to everyone’s tastes as coffee shop goes back to white paint for its frontage
All good things must come to an end as the saying goes, but in this case it’s a lot earlier than The Remedy and their supportive community want it to.
Their colourful, designer wall has been painted over.
Faced with transforming the white wall on the outside of their drivethrough coffee shop on Rimu Rd, Paraparaumu, into a work of art, Remedy used the space and earlier in the year unveiled a colourful wall that looked more like a mural than branding.
Six months of planning, saving money, and then six weeks of handpainting the wall over summer resulted in a “bright, out the gate” fusion of signage advertising the business and street art.
“When coming up with a new design, it was super-important to us that our business values were clearly on display,” The Remedy wrote on their Facebook page after its completion.
“Having ‘People, Community, Family’ smack bang in the centre constantly reminds us of our priorities at Remedy, and it’s also a pleasure to bring some colour and street art to the community.”
Designed by Holly Quinn and painted by Andy Evans from Studio Signs, the Remedy notified their landlord of their intention to paint the wall.
Given permission, they proceeded and wrote on their Facebook page, “We are so so so proud to be sporting this design and we hope you’re all loving it as much as we are.”
But just before lockdown, Remedy owner Emma Faith received a letter from the landlord saying another tenant had disputed the wall.
Lockdown hit and the issue was on the backburner for a while but, on June 5, Emma received another letter stating the wall had to be painted white by 5pm on July 10.
“The letter said we had no right to paint the wall even though I painted it three years ago when I bought the business.
“The landlord knew about it as we asked to show them the plans twice before going ahead with it because we knew it was going to be bright and out the gate.
“The landlord said as long as we were paying rent the wall was fine.”
However Emma soon found out the wall was not written into their lease.
So the wall was painted over despite the support it has had from the community.
“People are saying to us ‘it’s only a small wall, you’ll be okay’, but we are a living wage employer and had to save up a long time for it.”
Costing $16,500, the expense, time and effort could have been avoided if they were told earlier that the wall was not theirs to paint.
“The sad thing for us is that we did everything right — we asked and were transparent with everything we did.
“People love that wall. You either love it or you hate it, and at the moment people are wanting more colour and street art in this community.
“We have people, family and community written in the middle of the wall — those are the values we are about so it’s pretty heart-breaking to have to take it down.”
Support from the community has been humbling for Emma, manager
Taylor Finderup who played a massive part in getting the project done, and the whole Remedy team.
“It’s overwhelming and humbling seeing the support of people out there, especially after Covid-19.”
Using their last week of the wall’s colourful existence, they invited customers to write on the wall, sharing a positive word of support.
“The positive messages left on the wall will inspire our new signage, which will be a far smaller section of the wall around our main window.
“We just wanted to enjoy it while we had it.”
Painted together by the team on Friday afternoon, the wall might now be white, but the coffee is hot and the doughnuts are still sweet.
The landlord knew about it as we asked to show them the plans twice before going ahead with it. Emma Faith