Petone’s Good Fortune celebrates a decade of good vibes and beans
Monday, 6 April 2026
Good Fortune Coffee sits inside an old villa on Fitzherbert St - the last remnant of a once-residential East Petone long since swallowed by industry.
Inside, a plastic Jesus figurine watches over coffee beans roasting below, while customers sip flat whites against pastel weatherboard walls.
With its tarot iconography, mismatched decor and disjointed charm, Good Fortune’s eclectic personality is all part of its appeal.
The roastery is celebrating its 10th year with a commemorative roast and a special pin, so The Post sat down with founder Matt Wilson to hear how he found his way into the coffee trade.
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More than a decade ago, Wilson was diagnosed with bowel cancer. After going into remission, he felt ready for something new - and Good Fortune was the result.
He’s spent 30 years in hospitality, starting at 17 and first opening a cafe in Vivian St. He later founded Maranui Cafe and, with business partner Freya Atkinson, opened Seashore Cabaret, which the pair eventually sold.
It was while running Seashore Cabaret that Wilson bought a coffee roasting machine on Trade Me.
Previously, the restaurateur had been using coffee roasted at Havana, but the Seashore Cabaret building was big enough that he could roast on site.
Initially, the roastery was simply a way to break up the space, with head roaster Jesse Warren spending “a few days” a week roasting, and the rest on the floor.
As the operation grew, the machine eventually moved to its current Fitzherbert St site — the moment it truly became Good Fortune.
The roastery sells its coffee through an online subscription service, and customers are welcome to drop by the Fitzherbert St site. The coffee is certified organic and roasted on site by Warren.
Using fair‑trade coffee has always been important to Wilson, who also made a point of paying staff a living wage while running Seashore Cabaret — the first Wellington business to do so, he says.
Good Fortune’s coffee, while popular, is stocked only in a handful of local supermarkets. A few Kāpiti Coast cafés use it too, including Paekākāriki’s Beach Road Deli.
Wilson says it’s this mix of subscriptions, local stockists and café partners that kept the roastery afloat — even through the second wave of Covid‑19 — because it wasn’t relying solely on hospitality to survive.
The industry was in a challenging spot at the moment, Wilson said, with a poor harvest making the industry tough to navigate.
The roastery raised its prices just before Christmas, but this year’s harvest looked far more promising, Wilson said.
He worries climate change will continue to affect the crop.
“It’s just going to be a rocky ride,” he said.
The cafe’s aesthetic came from the brain of designer Sam O’Leary, with input from Wilson, who said he had always loved getting his palm read and was interested in Tarot.
The name itself came from a building he had driven past in Sydney, called Good Fortune Supplies.
Currently, the roastery works with beans from eight different origins, but most of its scoffee was sold as blends.
Where does Wilson see the business in 10 years? He had no idea, he said, but added that, as he got older, he became more content and less eager to make something “bigger and better”.
“It's actually quite nice. If it stays this busy, I'd be quite happy.”