Latest / Best of Business / Karl Christensen: Ohakune business owner on the closure of Desert Road

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Karl Christensen: Ohakune business owner on the closure of Desert Road · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
• 0:12
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: The enclosure of the Desert Road has been pretty sweet
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: for Orcune, with two months worth of road maintenance underway
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: and still to come. Businesses on the Deed Tour are
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: pumping with the extra traffic. The famous chocolate the Clearest
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: shop if you've ever been there, it's really good, reportedly
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: selling eleven hundred of them a day. Carl Christensen is
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: with the Mountain Rocks Owakuni. He's the owner. Cal Welcome
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: to the show. Good to have you on here. When
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: was the last time you guys were us busy?
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  Speaker 3: Probably twenty thirteen and then straight up lockdown. I guess
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: when everyone went mad on their release from the jungles
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  Speaker 3: are from the jails.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, how busy are you?
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, we're probably as busy as busiest winter. Yeah,
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: sort of situation, but steady. It's kind of all week
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  Speaker 3: we long, so it's just steady float. As you know,
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: with the traffic. It's a captured market, so we've got
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: this flow of traffic those details through town most of
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  Speaker 3: the time, and yeah, it's just blown. It's away. Really
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  Speaker 3: we expected, you know, maybe a thirty yeah, twenty five,
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  Speaker 3: thirty percent increase in sales, but it's been more like
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: a sixty to seventy five increase in There's been a
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  Speaker 3: real boom, especially after what we've been through this year.
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  Speaker 4: Do you have enough staff?
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  Speaker 2: Because a lot of people said that they were surprised
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  Speaker 2: that the road was going to be closed for so long.
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  Speaker 4: Were you surprised? Are you guys get up for this?
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  Speaker 3: Well? I think you know, as we spoke earlier in
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: the year about staff and shortages, we're still not open
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: probably nights anymore. We're extended our hours to seven seven
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. But yeah, we're still
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: very short staffed on those skilled positions chefs forristeras, so
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: a lot of those positions have dried up, so we're
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: still pretty short that way, but ours, we've just limited
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: them to manage the staff we have, and we're just lucky.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: We've got great staff.
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  Speaker 2: We've got issues with the ski that, you know, the
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: mountain opening, we've got the chateau being shuttered. Basically, are
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: you are you sort of feeling good right now, but
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  Speaker 2: knowing that there's a hard road down down the line.
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  Speaker 3: Oh we we know that this is this is just
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  Speaker 3: an interim sort of stay of execution if you like them.
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  Speaker 3: But yeah, it's great. Well, the opportunity for us is
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  Speaker 3: to showcase ourselves to those people who haven't been here before,
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: because look, I'm speaking to as many as I can,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: you know, in between making coffee and and a lot
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  Speaker 3: of them haven't been this way. It's surprising so many
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  Speaker 3: New Zylanders that have never been off State Highway one
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  Speaker 3: when it comes to war. So it's a real challenge
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  Speaker 3: for us to try and capture those people. Say to them,
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  Speaker 3: this is this is an alternative if you if you're
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: traveling to Auckland, you don't have to travel State hiwaiy
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  Speaker 3: one all the time. So it's an opportunity, I guess
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  Speaker 3: for us to to try and get that Avenges and
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  Speaker 3: spirit and the Kiwieds come the other way, and I
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  Speaker 3: think that's the big bonus. I think they're seeing little
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  Speaker 3: things here that they enjoy. They like what they see,
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  Speaker 3: they see we've got things to do, so we're going
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: to promote ourselves. So we've got that eight week window
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: to promote ourselves.
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  Speaker 4: And cal people are loving joys scones.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: They love them. They're delicious. She's actually a gym. You know.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: We're very lucky. Yeah, she makes go What did you
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  Speaker 3: call it for?
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: What did you call it?
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  Speaker 3: Delicious? Delicious, that's what we call it, Je delicious.
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: That's cal Carl.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Thank you for that, Carl Christensen the Mountain Rocks in
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  Speaker 2: Coney Go and get one of Joy's scones.
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  Speaker 4: They sound delicious.
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