Kitchen business finally gets a stable home
Despite having to relocate four times since September 2010, The Cook Shop owner Elizabeth Fry has simply packed up, unpacked, kept calm and carried on.
The specialist kitchen retail business is a Christchurch institution of 30-plus years. Fry bought the business 16 years ago when it was based on Colombo St, near the Convention Centre and the Town Hall.
After September 4 the building ‘‘just didn’t feel the same’’, prompting Fry to find an alternative site in the former Strategy building on Montreal St.
The business moved in November 2010, and traded strongly, picking up new customers.
But the February quake damaged that building, which has since been demolished, and the Cook Shop had to move.
When Fry and her husband returned to their Huntsbury home that day the damage was such they ‘‘couldn’t find a toothbrush’’. They went to stay with friends in Springfield and Fry remembered arriving, and one of their friends pushing a glass of wine into her hand and saying ‘‘There we are Lizzy, take two big slurps, quickly.’’
In July they secured premises at 384 Montreal St. But in March they were given 24 hours’ notice that the building was unsafe and they needed to move out. Stock went into storage at a friend’s place and Fry had just started wondering ‘‘Where to next?’’ when Angus Cockram rang and said ‘‘You’ve had such a terrible time, would you like to take the showroom?’’
After several months of trading from the showroom floor of Gary Cockram Hyundai, The Cook Shop is now settled in permanent premises on the corner of Holmwood Rd and Rossall St.