Popular Feilding cart Alchemy Coffee up for sale
A popular Feilding coffee cart is for sale, as its owner looks to brew up a new challenge for herself.
Alchemy Coffee’s distinctive red van has become a fixture at the Feilding Farmers’ Market, Manawatu¯ events and Saturday morning rugby games over the past eight years.
But after serving more than 200,000 cups of coffee Alchemy owner Christie Marshall is selling the business.
Marshall said coffee had been her life for 12 years, and she loved roasting her own beans and perfecting her blends for Alchemy, but it was time to try her hand at something new.
Marshall became a barista because she wanted a job she could do while her two children were in school.
She took a job at Feilding’s Robert Harris Cafe, which later became Coffee on The Square, and fell in love with the art of making coffee, she said.
Marshall opened Alchemy a few years later, after deciding on impulse to buy a small commercial bean roaster.
Starting a coffee cart and being her own boss gave her more control over her hours, and more creative control over making coffee.
Now her children were 18 and 20 and leaving home it was the perfect time for a new start for Marshall aswell, most likely with a new small business, she said.
Marshall said word she was selling Alchemy seemed to get out among her regulars almost before she began advertising the business. ‘‘Everyone’s really upset. They keep saying, ‘you can’t sell, you can’t’. All I can say is, ‘sorry, it’s time’.’’ Marshall said she was going to miss her customers too. ‘‘People in Feilding are awesome, especially since Covid hit. They go above and beyond to support local businesses.’’
The Feilding Farmers’ Market, for example, had been packed since the first lockdown lifted. Even in the worst weather, when the market would usually be virtually empty, people were still turning up in large numbers.