The Adventurous Grocer
Craig Bishop-Everett
A question “What did you do before?” opened the door to a story so big and varied that the greatest challenge in its telling, is keeping it concise.
To most people, Fifty-three- year-old Craig Bishop-Everett, is a friendly grocer. That he is, but there’s more.
Craig’s mother was an unsung hero. She was a solo mum to Craig and his sister, working by day at a clothing factory, and in evenings sewing take-home work on her own over locker. That was her routine for forty-nine weeks of the year and then at Christmas she would pack the kids, a canvas army surplus tent, utensils and camping gear, into her Morris 1100, and make the short trip east from their home in Papakura, on the south-east outskirts of Auckland to the Orere Point Holiday Park on the shores of the Hauraki Gulf. There, they would enjoy two to three weeks of doing whatever pleased them, swimming, socialising, relaxing and exploring.
When Craig was eleven years old, they moved to Manurewa to join his mum’s new partner, Ron.
Craig took on a butchery apprenticeship at New World, Manurewa, when he left school at sixteen. His mothers work ethic was an example to him. Likewise for his boss, Foodstuffs first female butchery manager. Craig has nothing but good to say about her, and the store owner.
His apprenticeship spanned four years, and he stayed a further year, before flying off to London.
A friend from his badminton club was already there, staying with her grandmother, and they offered him a roof over his head until he found his feet.
At Heathrow airport, he was expecting to be met by his friend and her grandmother, but no one turned up, and he didn’t have a contact phone number, only their address.
When Craig found their place, it was pandemonium. His friend was in tears, and there were police, and other people coming and going. Soon before Craigs plane touched down, grandma had died. She was probably getting ready go out the airport.
Craig had just flown from the other side of the world, at the wrong place at the wrong time, and surplus to requirement. There was nothing for him to do, except go to bed.
The next day he went door knocking on pubs. It didn’t take long to find a job, and he had the good fortune of being offered work at one of the pubs leased by magnet, Dick Morgan.
It’s the dream of many Brits, to own a pub. Along with being one of London’s most successful publicans, Dick Morgan built an empire based on a repeating cycle of optimism and demise. He would sell one of his leases to a new entrant, putting full price on everything: tables and chairs, glassware, the bric-a-brac on the walls, and so on.
The new entrant would discover that running a pub was more work than they thought, and that there was lots to learn. Standards would slip. Patronage would drop. Their brewery, seeing the fall in turnover, and perhaps and slowness in paying accounts, would raise their prices, and the pub would fail.
The new entrant would be relieved at receiving something, rather than nothing, when Morgan offered to buy back the lease, paying half price for everything.
Morgan would, then, install capable, affable staff, and the pub would return to profitability.
Morgan took good care of Craig; always providing him with work and accommodation at one of his London pubs, when Craig returned from trips to the Middle East, Asia or Africa.
After two years, twenty-six-year-old Craig thought it was time to return New Zealand, and settle down. That was a mistake. Upon return, he found the sameness oppressive. He hadn’t yet had his fill of new places, new people and cultural diversity. He contacted Morgan, who flew him back and install him as manager of The Water Rats, a public house, music venue, and home of ‘The Grand Order of the Water Rat’.
The Grand Order is a male only fraternity, established in 1896. It is ‘the club’ for entertainment notables. If you watch any UK, TV, you will recognise see many of its members. David Niven was the king rat for a couple of years in the 1970. Prince Charles and his father, the duke of Edinburgh were companion rats.
The Water Rats
(recent photo)
Craig, was given responsible for all four floors of The Water Rats building at Kings Cross.
When Morgan’s lease ran out, a year later, and was not extended, he offered Craig a profit-share position at a pub, north of London, in Hertfordshire. After a year running the pub, Craig bought a food truck. This proved to be more profitable than his job, and six months later he bought another one.
In 2001, at the age of twenty-nine, He was finally ready to return to New Zealand.
Craig, with his three dogs, a Saint Bernard, German Shepard, and a Labrador left for New Zealand.
He went straight back to being a butcher at a New World store.
Initially, he and the dogs stayed with his mother, but he soon found a house to rent.
Meanwhile, Foodstuffs offered Craig a job managing their Butchery Apprentice Program for stores north of Taupo. He was charged with passing on the skills and attitudes which were, for him, second nature.
His job had a large element of pastoral care, teaching life skills, such as: getting up to work on time, eating healthily, saving money, and disciplining yourself to completing written course work.
From that rewarding position, he was elevated to training store managers, including goal setting, financial literacy, staff management, and accountancy.
From that, he was invited to join a team of six, rewriting Foodstuffs syllabus for trainee managers and store owners.
This was a step away from the rewards of being on the front line, directly adding value to his trainee’s lives. None-the-less, Craig thrived, in the comradery and common purpose to be found amongst the other five working on the syllabus project. Better still, during that time, he met Karen, who would be his wife.
Once the new syllabus was complete, he was pitched into, what might sound like a stimulating role, managing a huge, 400 staff, PaknSave at Glenfield on the North Shore. In reality, once he’d got to grips with the new job, and all systems were ticking over, he became bored.
Twelve months later, he and Karen moved to Golden Bay, and bought a sixty-foot, ex-fishing boat, at Tarakohe, and moved on board. The best part of this boat was the 850 horse power, diesel motor. It had just had a complete overhaul, and was a gem. But the Kauri hull leaked, and the cabin needed to be replaced and reconfigured.
I was surprised at Craigs response when I said that renovating the boat must have been a huge challenge. He said “Not really. If you don’t know how to do something, you just ask around, and eventually work it out”.
That done, he and Karen struck off to circumnavigate the North Island, anticlockwise. Step one was passing through Cook Strait. At the South East end of the strait is an area known as ‘The Rolling Grounds’. There, they struck some heavy weather. When I said that he must have been scared, he said “Not at all. It was uncomfortable, but I never felt in danger”.
Craig and Karen bought a half share in what is now called ‘Paper Plus’ in Takaka (at the time it was called ‘Take Note’).
Six months later, they took on the lease for the recently closed supermarket in Collingwood.
In 2016, they sold the fishing boat; bought a thirty foot yacht, and sailed it to Tonga, initiating an annual routine of spending winters in the tropics sailing and summers in Golden Bay working.
In December 2019 Craig and Karen, having sold both of their shops, purchased a forty-five-foot yacht in Fiji to begin their dream of sailing around the world.
Forty-five foot Ora in the tropics
In March 2020, when New Zealand’s Covid lock down was imposed. Craig and Karen were in Fiji. Craig’s Fiji visa was soon to expire, and he would become an illegal over-stayer.
Visa extensions were obtainable, but expensive. The other way to renew a visa was to travel to another country, get a stamp in your passport, and then re-enter. If Craig acted fast, he could fly back to New Zealand, get the stamp, and return. So, in a near empty plane, he flew out, had dinner and a sleep in New Zealand, and then returned to Fiji, the next day.
With the new visa, he was able to remain for three months. Karen had recently travelled, so her visa was also good for more than two months.
Covid wore on, and the Fijian government made available Covid visa extensions making Craig and Karen residents of Fiji.
As New Zealand citizens, with a boat in Fiji, and the skills to undertake an ocean passage, Craig and Karen found themselves able to offer a unique service. During Covid, they could legally sail between the two countries, albeit having to endure quarantine upon re-entry at both ends.
There were Kiwis wanting their boats returned to New Zealand before the cyclone season (summer). Craig and Karen charged handsomely to provide that service. During lock-down they brought two yachts back to New Zealand.
Covid abated. They sold their boat, and travelled to San Diego, where they bought a forty-two-foot ‘Privilege Catamaran’. These catamarans are Cadillacs on water. Spacious, due to the large cabin area between the hulls, and luxurious. They sailed her south along Mexico’s, 1200 km long, Baja Peninsula, and then explored its inland side. Then they continued south to Guatemala, and onto El Salvador, where they stopped for three months.
After a lay-over in Peru, they struck off west for French Polynesia, then Fiji, before continuing west to New Caledonia.
With the cyclone season approaching, they then made for Bundaberg on the Queensland coast.
When the risk of cyclones had abated, they set sail for Indonesia and finally, Malaysia, where they sold the boat and returned to New Zealand.
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Forty-two foot Ora 2 in Tahiti
And that almost brings us to the present day.
Next to ‘The Sprig and Fern, The Meadows’, was a space earmarked for a grocery store. Across the road, is vacant land awaiting construction of a school.
Two days after the Ministry of Education announced the schools go ahead, Craig signed a lease for the grocery space. Then, the new government put a ‘go slow’ on the new school.
Craig’s decision to sign the lease was based on the boost to trading that would come with a school being across the road. With the school being delayed, Craig and Karen have to make to make do without that boost.
The grocery is a franchise under ‘Foodstuffs South Island’ branded ‘On the Spot’. Other names that would be appropriate, for this particular store, are ‘Spotless’. (It’s conspicuously clean and tidy), or ‘Spot On’. (It’s got everything you’re likely to need).
My interview with Craig was punctuated by his serving customers, and every time they were made to feel special.
Craig’s passion for new places and new faces still burns bright, but for the moment he is channeling his energy into maintaining a gold standard grocery store.