Sarah and Janusz Choromanski were living in Melbourne and running Coburg’s Good Times Coffee when they started thinking about returning to Aotearoa after 13 years abroad.

This week, they opened their new cafe Everyday Coffee on Sandringham Road – a textural, warm-toned space filled with recycled matai timber and raw concrete.

“We wanted a space that wasn’t trying to do too much. It was an opportunity to design something for our people, our aiga and whānau,” says Sarah. Part of the reason the husband-and-wife team came home was so their kids could reconnect with their Māori, Samoan and Tongan heritage. “Our vision was to create a place that we wanted to be in, a place that was open and welcoming to everyone – with our focus being good coffee, good food and good music – nice and low-key. But also, a place full of laughter and where our family and friends felt welcome to stop in and hang.”

Everyday Coffee serves Allpress on the espresso machine, and for filter it features rotating speciality roasteries including El Descanso from Tāmaki Makaurau, and Melbourne’s Wood and Co and El Parche.

Food-wise, there are pastries and baked goods from Daily Bread, pretzels from Mount Roskill-based Bloom’s Pretzels – and Sarah and Janusz’s specialty, a bagel menu that pays tribute to their roots.

The Stan’s Deluxe is named after Janusz’s Polish father, and contains pastrami, cream cheese, pickle and sauerkraut with hot and sweet mustard. There’s also a pisupo (corned beef) bagel that’s a Pacific take on a Reuben, plus classics such as lox, smashed avocado and feta, and an egg and bacon breakfast bagel.

When they took the lease on the space, it was an empty white room with a bumpy painted floor. Janusz has his own architecture and interior design studio Native Design Workshop, and he and Sarah transformed the look and feel themselves – working with matai salvaged from local houses and a school hall, and hand-pouring the concrete benchtop.

The stools at the window were sourced from a pasta joint in Melbourne that was closing, brought over to New Zealand and repainted. They’re the perfect place to perch while the morning sun streams in on its climb up over Maungawhau.

Everyday Coffee
163 Sandringham Road, Sandringham, Auckland
No phone

Hours
Mon to Fri 7am–3pm
Sat & Sun 8am–3pm

@everyday.coffee.nz