Whakatāne café and paua pie queen Rikki-Maria Pakuria (Ngāti Awa) has plenty going for her as a business owner: drive, passion, and fearlessness for starters.

Most of all, she has her father’s words with her everywhere she goes.

From modest beginnings during the Covid-19 lockdowns, Rikki-Maria has in a short time opened up a café, a coffee cart, and a seasonal café at a holiday park in Whakatāne.

The café has the unusual moniker of Allthesands Coffee – a name that originates with her father and a popular Whakatāne location.

“You know how people say ‘I love you to the moon and back’? My dad used to say ‘I love you more than all the sands,” she says, referring to Thornton Beach, a place special to Rikki-Maria and her dad.

“I dreamt about this when I was growing up; I used to write in a book that I would have a business, and I didn’t even know what I thought it was going to be, but I wanted the business to be called All the Sands.

“Now, when I hear people in the café on the phone saying ‘I’m at All The Sands’, I’m just like ‘wow, that’s what my Dad used to say. That’s my biggest ‘wow’.”

It’s not only her Dad, Lawrence, who’s now passed away, that she remembers through the café, but also her brother Rah, who also sadly passed away in the last two years.

“At one event a few years back things got a bit quiet, so we started making up drinks, and we put one together that’s vanilla, white chocolate, coconut milk ice, blended and with whipped cream.

“You can taste the vanilla, and my brother was like ‘yeah, call it Rahnilla’. It’s really popular, and just hearing someone say ‘can I have a Rahnilla’, that keeps his name alive.”

Rikki-Maria showed her hand early at business, winning a Whakatāne High School version of Dragon’s Den by selling lemonade made using her nan’s recipe. Eventually that led to a Management Studies degree from Waikato University’s Tauranga campus – which she completed despite having a baby during the course.

“I was pregnant in my last exam for my third year, and I ended up having her two days after that, and then I finished my last year after that. I was lucky I had really good support during that time to help me finish.”

It was during her holiday breaks from university that Rikki-Maria laid her foundation for her start in business, doing what many New Zealand students do: working at a coffee cart.

“When I finished Uni, the owner sold his coffee cart, so I was like ‘what am I going to do now?’ And then we just ended up getting my own coffee cart.

“We didn’t have funds, but we actually got a loan out for that. So many people ask ‘how did you afford that’, but you just have to take the risk. That’s what business is about.”

Working from a base at Stewart Street, close to Whakatāne Hospital, she went from selling nine coffees a day to 50 regulars in three months, and even more once Covid-19 lockdowns ended. Not too long afterwards, an opportunity to sub-lease a location on Commerce Street, about 1.5km away, as a café came up.

“I had one of my friends working part time for me, and another friend who couldn’t work because cruise ships weren’t running, and I thought ‘well if I open this, all three of us will have a job’, and that’s how that started.

“When the retail shop that I was sub-leasing from said they were leaving, I was told I either take the entire lease over or not at all. That was another risk, but I said ‘no, stuff it, I’m gonna do it’.”

A few months later, a third opportunity arose – 13km away at Ohope Beach Top 10 Holiday Park, for a cart during summer months. The holiday park leases the land from Rikki-Maria’s iwi, Ngāti Awa, and they wanted to support a Ngāti Awa business. Her proposal was accepted, so that became business number three.

Even with these thriving, Rikki-Maria still thought she needed more. That’s when her extra calling card came to the fore.

“I just needed something to amp it up a little bit, and that’s when I thought of the paua pie,” she says.

“We make creamed paua at home, so I thought ‘how hard is it?’ So I made some paua at home and just added my own little twist to it, and I was like, this could actually work.”

A kitchen was added at Commerce St, and the paua pie became a hit. “I was only doing 10 a day to start, and then someone posted about it on Facebook. Within a week were selling like, 60-70 a day.

“It’s still really popular, to the point where some days we couldn’t get any paua.”

With the growth of her empire has come the need to take on more than just friends as staff, something Rikki-Maria says has been a challenge at times to her.

“I studied HR and I knew you had to be quite strict on staff at times and have procedures in place, but because I started by myself and then just had two friends, I kind of forgot about that. So when I started getting staff in for the Top 10 location, I was just, like really, heaps too cruisy. I’ve learned sometimes you need to be stern sometimes.

“Being young and being the boss is a challenge as well. Like, I actually had staff who were double my age, and I don’t know what’s with them, but they wouldn’t listen. Even though I own the business, they would still try and tell me what to do.”

One thing Rikki-Maria sees the value in is hospitality training, especially learning barista skills, as a way to get started in the workforce. “Knowing how to make coffee straight out of school, you’re likely to get a job. There’s so many café jobs, even if it’s temp casual shifts, so it’s something to work at until you find what you want to do.

“But one thing that would be really helpful with some barista qualifications is a placement, even if it’s for a week. I had one staff member who had a barista certificate but it was six months beforehand and when she started she didn’t know how to make coffee.

“A couple of weeks into it and she was away, and she remembered ‘oh yeah, I did get taught this’. So you can have the qualification, but have to be practicing it.”

Helping people into work is something Rikki-Maria is extremely proud of. She’s equally motivated to be a mentor to young people.

“My overall goal is to teach people how to start a business, because I never had anybody to do that, even at Uni. But you can’t teach that if you don’t have a successful business,” she says.

“It’s so hard for kids to come straight out of especially high school, and then you’re just expected to figure out what you want to do. That’s why I want to do it, so they’re inspired.

“Otherwise, if you want to make it in business, I reckon just do it. Some of it is going to be a risk, but if you’re determined enough, you so can do it, no matter what age you are.”

For now, Rikki-Maria thinks a café, a coffee cart and a summer holiday camp location is enough in terms of shop numbers. But she’s still dreaming big with her secret recipe.

“My only barrier with the pies is that I don’t have a kitchen big enough to mass produce them. So that’s probably the next step, finding a commercial kitchen where I can mass produce them and sell them. Even frozen.

“If not, it could be something else. Crayfish pie maybe.”