How an Auckland doughnut recipe found a new home in Waharoa
As part of a Stuff and Sunday Star-Times summer series, Chloe Blommerde visits the truck stop of choice in smalltown Waikato. Neville Jacques knew his new cafe’s baking had to be special, so he sought out the expertise of a famous doughnut maker.
You might miss looking for it.
The Sweet Painted Lady cafe, on State Highway 27 in Waharoa, has been pumping out fresh treats for nearly a decade, drawing in more than 100 customers daily.
The small town of Waharoa – a low-socioeconomic settlement 7km from Matamata – has truckies continuously traipsing through the domain, overseas travellers bypassing on their journey to Hobbiton and many escaping the city life up north.
It’s here that customers are in for a treat. Literally.
You can’t miss her. A 1930s Betty Boop sits on the cafe’s roof attracting punters who’re in need of fresh home-baked, good ol’ Kiwi classic food.
Success didn’t happen overnight. While the sandwiches, wraps, and a decent cup of joe came naturally, owner Neville Jacques sought out speciality help on a particular matter: Doughnuts.
Neville thought back on his time growing up in Auckland and recalled a wellestablished Howick baker, Jim Duckworth.
Neville approached Duckworth, known for his ‘Duckworth doughnuts’ and success with all-time favourite treats like Chelsea buns and custard pies, shortly after the Sweet Painted Lady opened, and the pair spent a day in Duckworth’s Auckland kitchen.
Before long the Duckworth doughnuts were introduced to the Waikato.
In the early days, Neville would come in at 4am and work until 8am before going off to his day job in real estate. Now his mother Pat, 77, runs the show. People still come in asking for the Duckworth doughnuts, Pat says.
She couldn’t say what made the doughnuts extra special but said classic Kiwi doughnuts, like it if you’re not the Duckworths’, are harder to come by.
‘‘It’s the way people recognised doughnuts back in the day, they bring back childhood memories.’
She was roped in to help set up the family business for the first few weeks of opening. Eight years later she’s still there, working 10-hour days, six to seven days a week.
‘‘I quite like getting businesses up and running, but I’ve stayed here because I like it and I like dealing with people.’’
Customers can’t look past their most popular items – pies, toasties and muffins – all of which are made fresh.
Before Christmas of 2019, the cafe was buying its pies from Auckland but Pat says the team wanted to make their own from scratch, including cooking the meat for sandwiches and pies. Now 99.5 per cent of everything they sell is made in-house.
‘‘We wanted to set it up as traditional Kiwi baking, and we thought we could make something of it.
‘‘ It’s not rocket science, it’s plain stuff that I used to do out of the Edmonds Cookbook, or out of Alison Holst, and people love it. When I talk to customers I tell them it’s nothing fancy – but they say ‘it’s what we want’.’’
But it’s not the baking that makes the cafe’s success, she
says, it’s the customer service.
‘‘ I do really feel for truck drivers, they’re on their own, and when they stop to get refreshments they don’t want a sad face behind the counter, so we try to have a joke with them,’’ Pat says.
The Sweet Painted Lady opened in January 2012 after Neville took over the existing cafe and gutted it, built a new kitchen and started afresh. The only people on staff at the time was family; nieces and daughters filled out the roster.
He kept Betty Boop where she stood and drew his inspiration from her, and Elton John’s song, Sweet Painted Lady. Daughter
Nadine artwork.
Earlier this year Neville and Nadine opened ‘The Scoop’ just next door a few days before the country went into lockdown, converting a run-down little gift shop into a homemade gelato store, made from machines imported from Italy. Again drawing on outside expertise, the family was taught how to make the summery treat by an Italian gelato maker.
‘‘We thought it was going to be part-time for us all – but three months in Neil said ‘we’ve got a monster’,’’ Pat says. ‘‘We never knew what the potential would be.’’
Now, the Sweet Painted Lady employs 15 staff, and they consider themselves quite fortunate, as the SH27 location carries traffic from Auckland, Tauranga, Rotorua and Whakata¯ne.
Prior to colonisation, the area surrounding and including present-day Waharoa was held by Nga¯ti Haua¯. In 1830, the Nga¯ti Haua¯ chief Te Waharoa established the Matamata pa¯ a few kilometres north of the current settlement.
By 1865, Josiah Firth had purchased land in the surrounding area from Te Waharoa’s son, Wiremu Tamihana.
The township started to take shape in 1886 around the new railway station, Waharoa Station and from there the population started to rise. There were just three people in 1886, and 558 in 1996. Its heyday was in 1991 with 645 people.
It was a thriving town sporting a church, school, butter factory, flax mill, meeting halls, dairy factory and quarter sections.
The railway was rebuilt in 1923 and closed to passengers in 1969 and freight in 1981. But the population started to drop and by 2013 it was 465.
Some people travel to Waharoa just for the cafe. People have told Pat the cafe is the best thing Waharoa has seen for many years.
Pat says she will finish up at the cafe when ‘‘ I get fed up, or think it’s the time, but I’m not bored yet.’’ created the cafe’s