Pop-up restaurant founder Stacey Jones from Mount Maunganui describes time in lockdown as a ‘tale of two halves’ for her business Kitchen Takeover.

“It was hard because my seven events sold out in 24 hours before lockdown and they all had to be cancelled. But this was good because it forced me to pivot and move really quickly into something new, which would never have happened if I hadn’t had my hand forced.”

Stacey decided to package up her pop-up restaurant night into a dinner party box – a fine-dining experience delivered to your door.

“One of the challenges of the pop-up restaurant is that I spend months developing menus with chef Shane Yardley and experiences that are completely unique,” she explains. “The boxes are great because they allowed me to scale up and get the edible experiences into more people’s hands.”

Stacey is a big believer in the ‘innovate or die’ saying and views each one of her business ideas as a big prototype.

“You’re always moving forward and changing things to get a better end result. We’re in the very early stages of Kitchen Takeover – At Home , but it’s going really well. We sold out of all our boxes in the first and second round so I think that’s a good sign of market validation.”

Top businesswoman Theresa Gattung , who was involved in the conception of My Food Bag , is a fan, and one diner described it as “having a five star restaurant in your home”.

Kitchen Takeover pop-up restaurants are now back in full force in the Bay of Plenty. Stacey’s future plans include a physical food innovation space and a food festival to celebrate local producers. “Not sure when I’ll sleep…” she laughs. “It’s overrated anyway!”