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Speaker 1: The closure of the Desert Road has been pretty sweet

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Speaker 1: for Orcune, with two months worth of road maintenance underway

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Speaker 1: and still to come. Businesses on the Deed Tour are

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Speaker 1: pumping with the extra traffic. The famous chocolate the Clear Shop,

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Speaker 1: if you've ever been there, it's really good, reportedly selling

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Speaker 1: eleven hundred of them a day. Carl Christensen is with

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Speaker 1: the Mountain Rocks Owakuni. He's the owner. Cal Welcome to

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Speaker 1: the show. Good to have you on here. When was

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Speaker 1: the last time you guys were this busy?

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Speaker 2: Probably twenty thirteen and then straight up to lockdown. I

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Speaker 2: guess when everyone went mad when they were released from

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Speaker 2: their jungles, up from the jails.

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Speaker 1: I mean, how busy are you?

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, we're probably as busy as busiest winter. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: sort of situation. But steady. It's kind of you all week,

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Speaker 2: all week long. So it's just steady float as you know,

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Speaker 2: with the traffic. It's a captured market, so we've got

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Speaker 2: this flow perfect, those details through town most of the time.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, it's just burn it's away. Really. We expected

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Speaker 2: you know, maybe a thirty yeah, twenty five thirty percent

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Speaker 2: increase in sales. That has been more like a sixty

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Speaker 2: to seventy five percent increase in there's been a real boom,

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Speaker 2: especially after what we've been through this year.

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Speaker 1: Do you have enough staff because a lot of people

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Speaker 1: said that they were surprised that the road was going

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Speaker 1: to be closed for so long. Were you surprised? Are

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Speaker 1: you guys get up for this?

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Speaker 2: Well? I think you know, as we spoke earlier in

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Speaker 2: the year about staffing shortages, we're still not open probably

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Speaker 2: nights anymore. We're extended our hours to seven seven pm

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Speaker 2: or Thursday, Friday and Saturday. But yeah, we're still very

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Speaker 2: short staffed on those skilled positions, i e. Chefs for risters,

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Speaker 2: so a lot of those positions have dried up, so

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Speaker 2: we're still pretty short that way. But our hours, we've

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Speaker 2: just limited them to manage if we have and we're

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Speaker 2: just lucky. We've got great staff.

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Speaker 1: We've got issues with the ski that you know, the

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Speaker 1: mountain opening, we've got the chateau being shuttered. Basically, are

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Speaker 1: you are you sort of feeling good right now? But

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Speaker 1: knowing that there's a hard road down down the line.

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Speaker 2: Oh, we we know that this is this is just

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Speaker 2: an interim sort of stay of execution. If you'd like them,

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Speaker 2: but yeah, it's great. Well, the opportunity for us is

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Speaker 2: to showcase ourselves to those people who haven't been here before,

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Speaker 2: because look, I'm speaking to as many as I can,

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Speaker 2: you know, in between making coffee and and a lot

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Speaker 2: of them haven't been this way. It's surprising so many

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Speaker 2: New Ylanders that have never been off State Higway one

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Speaker 2: when it comes to woo. So it's a real challenge

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Speaker 2: for us to try and capture those people. Say to them,

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Speaker 2: this is this is an alternative if you if you're

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Speaker 2: traveling to Auckland, you don't have to travel State Hiwai

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Speaker 2: one all the time. So it's an opportunity, I guess

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Speaker 2: for us to try and get that Avengers and Spirit

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Speaker 2: and the Kiwis to come the other way. And I

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Speaker 2: think that's the big bonus. I think they're seeing little

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Speaker 2: things here that they enjoy. They like what they see,

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Speaker 2: they see We've got things to do, so we're going

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Speaker 2: to promote ourselves. So we've got that eight week window

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Speaker 2: to promote ourselves.

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Speaker 1: And cal people are loving joys scones.

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Speaker 2: They love them. They're delicious. She's actually a gym. You know,

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Speaker 2: we're very lucky. Yeah, she makes what did you call

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Speaker 2: it for what did you call it? Delicious?

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Speaker 1: Delicious?

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Speaker 2: That's what we call it, delicious.

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Speaker 1: That's cal Carl. Thank you for that, Carl Christensen. The

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Speaker 1: Mountain Rocks in ol coney Go and get one of

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Speaker 1: Joy's scones. They sound delicious. For more from the Mic

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Speaker 1: Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks it'd be from

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