Breaking bread
Nourishing the community is what’s on the menu at this delightful café.
WORDS Hayley Barnett
There’s something very charming and unpretentious about Victor Haupt, manager of The Atrium. But if you’ve ever visited this Otumoetai café, it’s exactly what you’d expect of the person who runs it.
Aside from the fact this little gem is found inside a church, and despite having a loyal following whose main customer base visits religiously, there’s really nothing religious about this café at all.
“When the church came to me and asked if I could run a café on site I said, ‘Sure, but if you want a community café, there will be no crosses on the wall, no Bibles on the table. It’s a community café’,” says Victor.
Taking on the challenge, Victor and wife Ruth (who are both long-time members of C3 City Church) opened The Atrium four years ago, and Victor says it still surprises newcomers.
“People say to me all the time they can’t believe it’s a church café,” he laughs. “But when I ask what they were expecting, no one can really tell me.”
It’s the focus on quality that draws people in. Starting out with only Victor and two staff members, they baked most of the food themselves. Just a year in, Victor discovered head chef Matt Anderson, who now changes up the menu regularly, to keep it fresh. And fresh it is. From the hearty Thai Beef Brioche Bun, to the Classic Benedict, the menu is designed to suit a variety of tastes. And, given that the 140-seat cafe is almost always packed out, Monday to Friday, it seems you really can please everyone.
Ever humble, Victor says the café’s success is largely down to his staff.
“I had minimal experience in the hospitality industry,” says Victor, who ran a café for two years in South Africa before moving here 15 years ago with Ruth and their four kids. “The only feather in my cap is that I employ good people. I’ve got my assistant manager, Hannah, who has loads of experience, and Matt, who we stumbled upon.”
A year after opening a woman who happened to manage a café at the Mount dropped by. She told Victor she’d driven past several times and swore she’d never go in. But, as fate would have it, she was forced to break the promise for a school function and it became her local within a week.
“I told her I wanted a chef and she said, ‘Have I got the person for you!’,” explains Victor. “It was Matt and he’s turned out to be really great. Between him and Hannah, they make me look very good.”
One thing the café has retained from the church is its ethos of giving back. One Saturday every month they host a free dinner for families doing it tough. There are plenty of them these days, says Victor.
“It’s hard out there for a lot of people at the moment. We just want to make a difference somehow, in some small way. We want to be known as a café that gives great service and great food, and if we can give back in any other way, we’ll do that, too.”
The Atrium is open Monday to Friday 7am to 3pm and offers conference facilities for hire.
