Two new cafes for Wellington: a New Day and Sketchbook
Saturday, 5 April 2025
The capital’s coffee scene just got a little bit richer, with several new coffee houses emerging out of the closure of two Wellington mainstays.
Cafe New Day on Constable St has replaced Peoples Coffee in Newtown, and soon-to-be open Sketchbook has taken over the former Peoples Cafe on Lukes Lane.
People’s Coffee founder Matt Lamason told The Post in March he was selling his cafes on Luke’s Lane and Constable St, but was keeping his Mansfield St roastery in Newtown.
The change of hands had been due to difficulties running the retail side of the business alongside two cafes, he said. Lamason first started Peoples Coffee in the Constable St cafe in 2004.
Loren Kluwer and partner Sam Peters have called their Constable St eatery New Day. The Post met up with the two coffee experts on Friday, and found the place buzzing.
Peters said he and Kluwer had hit the ground running, opening every day since they took over the site, not even having the chance to change the signage.
“We got the keys on 6pm last Thursday, and we opened at 6am [Friday].”
The name was a bit of a joke, Peters said ‒ as neither he or Kluwer were particularly new to the area.
Kluwer had worked as a barista at the Constable St cafe for a year, and Peters grew up around the corner on Daniell St. He still has family living in Miramar and Berhampore, he said.
He and Kluwer owned a coffee shop in Melbourne for eight years before selling up and moving to New Zealand.
Peters said he and Kluwer hadn’t been looking to buy a cafe, but when they heard Lamason was selling, the two of them felt it was important to keep the place going.
“We didn't want it to kind of turn into some sort of cafe chain.”
Eventually, the site would be fitted out, with some new furniture, a lick of paint, and some extra love ‒ as soon as they had a minute to themselves, he said.
There would also be a new menu, adding some fresh sandwiches alongside the classic toasties, and new juices in the cabinet.
Aside from that, it was business as usual, he said.
“We're still gonna be using Peoples Coffee ‒ that's the main one for us ‒ and the same organic milk. That's what people love.”
On Lukes Lane, the former Peoples Coffee site would soon become Sketchbook, owned by Logan Collinge, Tsubasa “Nico” Nozaki, Honoka Kawashima and Long Nguyen.
The four friends and longtime coffee fiends said they were looking forward to opening the cafe on April 29.
“We’re cautiously excited at the moment. Yeah, it's all real now. It's all happening,” Collinge said.
Together they had close to half a century in coffee experience, the group said. Kawashima was named 2023’s Aotearoa NZ Barista Champion, as well as placing forth in last year’s World Barista championships
“We've all been in the coffee industry for a while, and so we've got a lot of friends who have roasters and stuff, and so we really want to sort of showcase the diversity and the sort of ever changing-ness of the seasonality of coffee.
“I guess that's where our expressive coffee menu focuses on,” Collinge said.
The cafe would be open six days a week, from Tuesday to Sunday, 7am to 2.30pm during the week and closing 3pm during the weekends.
Kawashima said the group had chosen the cafe’s name, Sketchbook, because coffee was in a way similar to art.
“The other meaning is we want customers to experience the same excitement when you open the first page of a sketchbook.”