Hayes Common owners moved south to get into hospitality - and buy their own home

Saturday, 15 February 2025

She trained as a journalist but part-time jobs in hospitality steered Lisa Quarrie, 45, towards her love of food. For the past nine years, Quarrie and her chef husband Brent Quarrie have owned Hayes Common, a popular Hamilton cafe.

The couple live on a rural property near Tamahere with their daughters Ruth, 13 and Lucy, 10, and Maisy, a three-year-old retriever/poodle dog.

LISA: I grew up in Auckland with parents who loved food and especially international cuisine, long before it was fashionable. While other kids were eating boiled potatoes and meat, they’d be cooking curries.

I did a journalism degree but having worked in kitchens since I was 17, I became a chef and worked in various restaurants and in sales for Mediterranean supplier Sabato for three years.

I met Brent when we both worked in the same kitchen and we spent a year travelling through South East Asia, teaching English in Cambodia and being inspired by the food.

We’d always wanted to open our own place but every site in Auckland was too expensive so when a friend told us about a place in Hamilton, we took a leap of faith and in 2007 opened The River Kitchen which we had for nine years before opening our all-day eatery Hayes Common in 2016. We did a full renovation of the 90s fit-out and can now serve around 70 customers inside and 80-100 outside.

We also had a food truck and opened a corporate cafe called Weave in a business park but we’re about to sell that. It will give us more time to spend with the girls because when you run a seven-day-a-week operation, it doesn't leave much family time.

We bought our first house three years after moving to Hamilton. It was a tiny state house but we renovated it, including squeezing in a 2m-long kitchen island.

We actually had plans drawn up for an extension but during lockdown when the four of us were at home, we realised that even with an extra room it wouldn’t be large enough.

Brent grew up with orchards and wanted a garden and we also wanted to get a dog so we started looking for a house with more room. We found our current place on 6,688m² of land about halfway between Tamahere and Matangi.

Built in the early 70s, it’s a 200m² four-bedroom, two-bathroom house. A previous owner had renovated it in the 90s, turning the garage into a main bedroom and adding decks, a pool and a large garage. The house is perfectly liveable but it’s a bit tired and not really our style.

When we bought it, the house was beige inside and out. We love colour, pattern and texture so we’ve been throwing paint around.

Our bedroom is now a dark navy colour and we’ve painted the small space next to it a restful green. It’s an odd space, not quite a bedroom but bigger than a hallway. We call it the green room and have turned it into an adult space, with a record player and art. I also use it for doing yoga.

I painted the interior of the pool house pink and terracotta because it desperately needed some colour. We had some fun with it and it really shows how transformational colour can be.

We’ve got grand plans to re-orient the house to create a better connection with nature. We’d love to put in floor-to-ceiling windows and move the kitchen so that it overlooks the pool.

Our current kitchen isn’t very practical for two chefs who love to cook and host because there isn’t much bench space. We’re starting to think about the renovation but it will be a staged approach.