‘Good to have you back’
We’ll hold our collective breath on Monday when the rebirth date of level 2 is announced. So many doors were shut and gates locked, but staff are now frantically preparing for the return to a sense of normality – with safety, of course.
The cafe
Milk Crate was the first to fall. On March 15, an Australian man found out that he had tested positive for Covid-19 while eating breakfast at the cafe. At the time, it was the capital’s first positive case, and just the seventh in the country.
After 10 days, the team re-opened on March 23, only for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to announce a national lockdown that very same day.
‘‘I think we were open for one morning,’’ owner/operator Morgan AllanWest says.
Despite being forced into closure longer than just about any other business in the city, Allan-West is in good spirits.
‘‘I’m optimistic. That’s better than hopeful,’’ he says.
Milk Crate will keep their systems largely the same from level 3 to level 2. There isn’t enough space to set up tables, so they’re sticking with takeaways.
‘‘It’s felt so good seeing people again, seeing the desires of the city. People really want the old comforts,’’ Allan-West says.
For most customers, those old comforts have been coffee, which has made up about 90 per cent of orders. Food sales have been dominated by dessert.
‘‘I expect people will move on from treating themselves, maybe we’ll sell more salads,’’ he says. — Joel MacManus
The sports arena
For weeks, no players pounded the stadium courts; no swimmers glided through the pools.
Now in the waning days of level 3, Te Rauparaha Arena duty manager Jono Griffith just wants to reconnect with his regulars again.
Griffith is standing outside the Porirua arena with Glenn Quintal, recreation manager, talking about how the facility – which hosts everything from Central Pulse games to weekend swimmers – will greet the new alert level.
Quintal said under level 2 there could not be any major non-sporting events at the arena – but he hoped the arena would feature as part of the plans for teams like netball’s Central Pulse.
‘‘If they do reconvene here . . . it will be in front of an empty stadium – there will be scoreboard-type activity, and hopefully it will be televised.’’
Things will be different for everyday people too: lap pools will be open, but with wider lanes and number restrictions, leisure pools will be open, but with restrictions.
High-touch zones inside would get the disinfectant treatment from staff throughout the day.
Despite the changes, Quintal said a return to the arena was exciting.
Staff, deemed non-essential workers were themselves excluded during lockdown – rapidly prepping the arena for closure then shutting the doors for six weeks.
‘‘This is our first step of recovering our social connections with people.’’
Griffith, beaming at the thought, will be there to greet them. – Joel Maxwell
The hotel
It’s been six weeks since the James Cook Hotel checked out its last guests. Staff were next to leave. Waving them all off, general manager Steve Martin went back inside and wondered which of the 268 empty rooms he would bunk down in while this whole strange business of lockdown played out.
It was a bit like The Shining, a film about a writer who goes mad in an empty hotel, only Martin didn’t lose his mind over a manuscript. He was too busy doing his daily security checks, making sure the fridges and freezers were all functioning, and organising maintenance.
‘‘The hotel is usually bustling with stuff running around, guests coming and going, smells coming out of the kitchens. It’s been strange and a bit eerie.’’
Martin says the whole team is ‘‘amping’’ for level 2 to happen. ‘‘Our employees are itching to get back to work.’’
It’s the employees, who have received 80 per cent of their wages, that have worried Martin the most. ‘‘The hardest thing has been wondering how our staff are coping. It worries me how all this has affected them.’’
The hotel has used the six-week guestless time to do some serious maintenance, including painting the foyer and function rooms. Right now they are painting lines on the floor to show safe social distancing.
The bar and restaurants are gearing up to open, reorganising tables and procedures to comply with the level 2 hospitality rules.
Martin says he is making peace with the fact that 20 per cent of their business will disappear with the international clientele. They will be relying on government and corporate guests.
All that remains is to check himself out. He’ll miss the view. – Bess Manson
The school
To Tim Van Zyl, Te Awa School is his baby.
He’s been the guardian of the Napier primary school for 12 years, currently keeping watch over 210 students who live in the tight-knit community.
But in a moment, the school grounds, often echoing with laughter, were silent, the playground empty, the classrooms vacant. New Zealand had entered lockdown.
But Van Zyl will no longer have to contact his students via Zoom meetings once the country lowers to level 2. You can hear the merriment in his voice, knowing he’ll have them back on the grounds once more, but it won’t come without its challenges.
‘‘The students are very ‘touchy,’ ’’ he says. ‘‘We build very strong relationships with our students, so we’re talking about hygiene and washing their hands which will happen very regularly.’’
Being a low-decile school, KidsCan provided each classroom with hand sanitiser.
Van Zyl said social distancing would be managed by the teachers in each classroom and acknowledged it would be difficult for the younger students. But everything would conform to Ministry of Education guidelines.
Luckily, the school has a large playground and staff would allow different break times for students, so the numbers in the playground were limited and the risk minimal.
If parents were uneasy about sending their children back to school, Van Zyl said they were happy for them to continue home learning until they felt safe enough to return.
‘‘It’ll be so exciting to have everyone back, just to see their smiling faces. That’s why we become teachers because we have this personal connection with the children.’’ – Georgia-May Gilbertson
The pub
Wellington’s beer lovers are craving for the taste of fresh, on-tap craft beer after an extended lockdown, and Maura Rigby, of Little Beer Quarter, is gearing up to make that happen.
‘‘Everyone is excited about level 2, but it requires us to change our business model quite a bit,’’ Rigby says.
The most notable change will be the lack of bar service. Instead, waiters will need to come to tables to take orders, a big change in mindset for a craft beer bar.
‘‘Because we have rotating taps, we’re used to having a lot of interaction between the bartender and the customer,’’ she says.
The normal capacity of 100 will be reduced to 64 in order to maintain proper distancing between groups.
In level 2, the bar has made the unusual move to being fully food-focused. While Rigby says they’ve always had a good menu, it’s previously been supplementary to their beer offerings.
A big winner has been a new line of comfort food – mac’n’cheese, fried chicken, and other guilty pleasures customers have been missing out on in lockdown.
The silver lining of the lockdown is the discovery of potential new revenue streams, as the business has been forced to adopt new takeaway apps and services.
‘‘We’re excited about level 2, but there’s definitely a little bit of the unknown. I’d call it hesitant excitement,’’ she says. – Joel MacManus
The hair salon
Stylists at Vivo Hair on Dixon St are gearing up for one of the biggest challenges in recent hairdressing history: an influx of botched home dye jobs.
‘‘We’re a bit worried, but it’s exciting in a way, because it’s a new challenge,’’ regional manager Natalie Taiapa says.
‘‘The messaging we’d been trying to get out to people thinking about colouring their hair at home is: ‘don’t do it’.’’
New Zealand as a nation has faced a month of bad hair days, and people are clamouring to get a trim. On Thursday, Vivo’s national call centre was inundated with more than 1800 calls. The Dixon St salon is already booked out for the entire first week of level 2.
‘‘It’s like the Christmas rush on steroids,’’ Taiapa says. ‘‘Stylists have had phone calls begging them for bookings.’’
The salon’s staff are just as eager as anyone to get their hair touched up, but they’re putting that on the back burner for now.
Social distancing will be tricky for hairdressers, but precautions are being taken to keep clients at least 1 metre apart, and limit the amount of people waiting in the shopfront. Stylists will wear masks and gloves if recommended by the Ministry of Health.
‘‘The stylists are excited. You’re dealing with creative people who just can’t wait to get back into it,’ Taiapa says. – Joel MacManus
The gym
Grab your towel, slip on your sneakers and pick up the hand sanitiser: It’s nearly time to hit the gym.
As level 2 creeps closer, Abigail Coburn is gearing up to reopen Waikanae’s BodyFix Gym in a brave new world. Getting back to business is a huge relief but it’s scary too.
‘‘So much is uncertain and I’m still coming to grips with it . . . I can’t wait to see my gym family though.’’
That Coburn can reopen her business at all is partly due to that gym family, she says.
An ‘‘absolutely wonderful’’ landlord and supportive customers have softened the potentially devastating effects of the lockdown. ‘‘I’ve been very lucky to have so many kind people in my life.’’
While the gym would soon reopen, things would be very different for customers keen to sweat it out.
‘‘The Exercise Association of New Zealand is our governing body and their requirements are even stricter than the Government’s rules.
‘‘One of the things we’ve been told is to keep the intensity of classes lower because once you start huffing and puffing that 2 metre distance isn’t enough.’’
Equipment would be moved to allow social distancing but gyms already had the jump on other businesses having to implement strict new cleaning procedures.
‘‘Gym people already wipe things down after they’ve used it. We’re good at that.’’ – Virginia Fallon
The museum
Almost every day during lockdown, Te Papa chief executive Courtney Johnston walked or jogged past the museum, looked at its closed doors and dreamed about reopening. As level 2 looms, she is excited – and a little bit nervous.
‘‘Closedown happened so quickly, and lockdown life has been such a remarkable experience for everyone – I think everyone is thinking through what going back out into the world means.’’
For Te Papa it will not mean an immediate and full initial reopening.
The museum is expected to open ‘‘within two weeks’’ of level 2 – likely in a phased way with some parts opening before others.
‘‘We’ve got a team of people thinking about every little bit – going through our exhibitions, making sure all of that is safe, looking at all our public spaces, reformatting the entry to the museum.’’
Once open, Te Papa would need to register people on arrival, and make sure visitors could practise distancing and good hygiene, she said.
Shutdown was rapid before lockdown – staff gathered downstairs and watched the last visitors leave the building, then performed a karakia, brought in the flag and closed the doors.
It was an extraordinary day in the history of the museum.
‘‘Te Papa is such a legend and a symbol. Day one of Te Papa was such a legendary thing for Wellington . . . I guess reopening for the public [again] is day two, for us.’’ – Joel Maxwell