Gold for the one who nearly pulled out

There’s an invisible ring around July 29 on Ellie Linton-Brown’s calendar. It’s the day that changed her life when she won the Café Boutique gold award at the Bakels NZ Supreme Pie Awards.

It had been a tough few years for her Main St Café in Huntly, and she almost didn’t enter the pie competition, but as she walked to the stage to receive her award it felt very significant. As a 14 year-old high school student some 30-odd years ago, Ellie had come to this very hotel, known then as The Sheraton, to learn about baking. Ellie had reached her career pinnacle getting industry recognition right where she had started. “It has been very life-changing, incredibly life-changing,” she says.

The win has given her business a massive boost with more than 2000 of her rhubarb and raspberry pies selling in the first four weeks post-awards, and there are no signs of it slowing down. Customers have come from far and wide - just the other day she had a couple from Levin who had made the special trip up to Huntly try her pie. And support from her local community has been very encouraging. It seems rhubarb and raspberry is a new flavour sensation in these parts with the former mining town bustling again with talk of gold.

“We’ve gone to a new level of busy since we won the award. It’s been a wild ride. Our slowest day was the day after the awards dinner, but don’t get me wrong, we were busy!” says Ellie.

Three years ago Ellie took a punt after working for employers her whole life. She bought the Main St Café and with the help of her daughter and son she started establishing her own business.

“We got broken into a couple of years ago and that nearly made me close down. We were struggling, and obviously we’re in a recession. It got to the point where we had to go to the supermarket to purchase product to be able make stuff for the next day to sell to make money. It was really, really bad. It nearly bankrupted us but I’m too stubborn to allow it to continue.”

So after two previous attempts at the Pie Awards, Ellie rolled up her sleeves and got to work on a couple of pie flavours she thought might have a chance, and in the midst of this she was moving premises, moving house too and working her butt off on a broken foot!

“I was so stressed out with the whole situation of renovations to the bigger premises and I was going to pull out because it was all too much. And then I decided I’d even change the concept because I was selling the pies in store…but with the rhubarb and raspberry I was putting short pastry on the top and it was too bulky. And it was literally the Tuesday night, before the pie entries got picked up on the Wednesday, that I changed that and put flaky pastry on the top. I’m very proud of that now.”

Ellie says it was the encouragement from her NZ Bakels rep Daniel and Bidfood’s rep Kylie that gave her the motivation to keep going with the competition.

“Kylie said ‘you can’t quit, you’ve come too far and you’re going to regret it if you don’t do it.

“When I got the phone call on the Friday to say I’d won the Café Boutique category I rang her quite early about quarter past seven because I was concerned about the rhubarb supply situation. I needed to tell somebody to secure me some rhubarb and I wholeheartedly trusted her. I was still a bit speechless and she was saying, ‘What’s wrong? What’s going on?’ and I’m like, ‘I f****n won! I won gold! She thought I was joking. We were having a bit of a giggle, and she said, ‘for the one who said she was going to pull out’.”

Ellie says she couldn’t have done it without her partner and family and she’s extremely grateful for that. And grateful too to the community who believed in her and who continue to support her as she supports them. “That’s just what you do in small communities,” she says with a smile.