Leigh and Matt Haines won't be changing much at Ollies which has been serving customers for 50 years. Photo: RNZ / Leonard Powell
One of Auckland's best-known restaurants has changed hands after 50 years, but the business is staying in the family.
Ollie's Diner in Royal Oak has been serving up ice creams, thickshakes and hotdogs since Colin Haines opened it back in 1973.
Now, Colin's son, Matt, and daughter-in-law Leigh are taking over, having met each other while working at the store nearly 20 years ago.
Leigh Haines told RNZ it wasn't love at first sight, as she thought the boss's son was "bossy".
Fast forward to the present day and Matt and Leigh have now been married six years and welcomed their first child earlier this year.
They have also taken over Ollies, meaning a full-circle moment for the couple, with some of Matt's earliest memories happening at the store.
"I remember when I was at primary school, I did a speech in year three on ice cream and my dad came up to Royal Oak Primary up the road and brought little ice cream sundaes for all my classmates. So that was pretty cool."
He agreed he was definitely the most popular kid at school that day.
There are 26 ice cream flavours on the menu at Ollies.
Photo: RNZ / Leonard Powell
Matt rolled his first ice cream cone for sale when he was 14.
"That was quite fun. I remember being on youth minimum wage, which was about $7.20 an hour at that stage, so you know if you did a few days of work, you could go and buy a CD from the CD store, which was good."
He said the thick shakes, ice cream cones and banana splits were their most popular items alongside burgers, hot dogs and toasties.
Matt's parents, Colin and Caroline, had returned from living in Canada for a few years in the early '70s when Colin got a job cooking chicken at the country's first KFC on the Royal Oak roundabout.
The couple went on to buy the shop next door to KFC in 1973, Colin told RNZ's Jesse Mulligan.
"Our favourite little store in Vancouver was called Little Ollies and it was spelt differently and we loved it and when we were trying to think of a name, of course it was my wife who said, let's call it Ollies. And so that's the way it happened."
Colin Haines serves up some ice creams. Photo: Lawrence Smith / Stuff
Colin says the original plan was to open the store, build up the business, then sell it to make some money, however, those plans quickly went out the window when Ollies opened up.
"Honestly, when we opened the store, it was just so busy right away that we just stayed and stayed. Then we built in the same area and our children all went to school and university, etcetera. So it really worked out very, very well."
Not much has changed at Ollies. They pride themselves on keeping it classic, right down to the spacey machines.
One thing that has changed is the prices. In 1973, a banana split was $1.50. Now it's $17, while an 85c thick-shake is $11 these days.
With a loyal customer base, Leigh admitted she was feeling the weight of taking over the business.
"I suppose there's a bit of pressure on me to maintain the loyalty of the customers over the years, from over the last 50 years. Making changes needs to be very carefully thought through, so that's probably the hardest thing," she said.
"We don't plan on changing too much. We wanna keep it pretty consistent with how it's been in the past and maintain our loyal customers, but also try and build a few more new customers. It's been working well for 50 years, so to come in and change it would be silly."
Colin officially handed over the keys to the business earlier this month. Matt and Leigh said they have some comfort knowing if they need help he would be just around the corner.
"We're in contact every day, Colin and I are going through things and he often comes into the shop and helps me out and shows me how to do stuff, which is great," Leigh said.
Matt added: "It's great. I think he's still processing not having the shop anymore, so it's probably been the biggest part of his life for such a long time. So I think any opportunity he has to talk about it or come up and visit, you know, he jumps at it."
