Furniture and homewares retailer Nido is set to open a café in the coming weeks, located within its recently opened 27000sqm store in West Auckland.

The new 1200sqm Perch café, which will seat 340, will be located on the second level of the store.

Vinod Kumar, Nido CEO, said the opening of the coffee space, which also serves meals to guests, is a necessary addition to the company’s homeware and furnishing product range.

“The sheer size and scale of Nido mean we are seeing customers already spending at least an hour in the store and with the opening of the second level, this will increase to an average stage of more than two hours,” Kumar said. 

“What we are finding is that customers are working up an appetite while browsing over 4km kilometres of product aisles. The opening of Perch is a natural extension to meet that need in store.”

Kumar said the new café will be a welcome boost for the local food service industry as well as employment in the hospitality sector. 

“Our coffee kiosk is already making up to 200 coffee cups per hour and Perch is expected to serve thousands of affordable meals each week,” he said.

“We have a machine which is capable of cutting a tonne of NZ grown potatoes into fries every five hours and we expect to purchase over half a tonne of fresh produce every month along with 15,000 beverages.”

That, according to Kumar, is an example on how this will benefit local food and beverage suppliers.

Kumar said the café will serve a wide range of iconic Kiwi dishes including bacon and egg pie and fish and chips. 

An opening date for Perch will be announced in the coming weeks.