Local Palmerston North Māori cafe owner, Jacko Stephens, has been serving up cafe favourites to the local community for the past 10 years. With New Zealand in lockdown, he says the business has been at a standstill. However, with level three approaching he is happy to be able to open up shop again.
While many small businesses are feeling the impact of Covid-19, Jacko Stephens says his business has not been badly affected.
"I feel like we've gone on pause for 4 weeks, there's still expenses going out but it's not enough to break us."
He says the government's subsidy scheme has helped keep his business afloat.
"Now, luckily, a lot of them were in the ballpark of what the 80% of that subsidy was going to be and so they were quite happy with that."
He and his team are now preparing to re-open their business once level 3 hits on Tuesday.
"It's all about working (with staff) through the guidelines for food health and safety that I need to implement to educate the staff on. So that when this process kicks off next week, we're all on the same page about how we should be operating."
Stephens says that with the help of the local Māori community he will be back in business in no time.
"We attract a lot of Māori and they're very supportive of my business, they tell their friends, people from out of town."
This lockdown period has given him an opportunity to look at having a fresh new start.
"We've had that time to think about what we can do and where we can go from where we ended, to how we can start fresh and carry on maybe in a new direction."
Cafe-Jacko will open its doors on Wednesday for pick up takeaways only.