Trademe Restaurant Girls Raise Capital With Cookies

After picking up a complete restaurant on Trademe for $181, Theresa Cowan and Kathy Dryfhout have come up with a novel way of raising capital for their new venture. The pair will be selling giant Cookie Time cookies and life memberships for their restaurant on-line through Trademe.

The pair approached well-known Kiwi entrepreneurs, Cookie Time’s Mike Mayell and mortgage man Mike Pero to help make their restaurant dream a reality.

Theresa Cowan said it was Mayell’s suggestion to sell the giant cookies; “We knew we needed help to launch the restaurant. We also need capital. We approached Mike Mayell to help us and things have just taken off.

“Mike Mayell introduced us to Mike Pero and between them they have enlisted the support of PR people, Photographers, Web designers and many others who are giving their time for nothing to help us.”

Theresa said the initial idea was to sell shares in the company; “But talking to Mike Mayell and Mike Pero, we decided that an IPO was not possible for us, so we came up with the better idea of selling giant cookies with a lifetime club membership.”

The girls are hoping to sell 4000 giant cookies for $20 + postage. The cookies come with a life-membership package including:

- A monster size limited edition CookieTime Cookie
- A top NZ album dDub - Awake at Dawn (rrp $29.95)
- A life time membership to 181 Restaurant
- 25% off all meals
- Kids eat free on their birthdays
- First option to any future promotions

A donation to World Vision

“When the girls approached me I was impressed with their vision and their determination to make the restaurant a success,” said Mike Mayell. “There is a lot of negativity out there at the moment and it is fantastic to see their fresh enthusiasm and drive to make this restaurant work.”

The dDub album was also Mike Mayell’s idea: “dDub are a fantastic New Zealand Roots/Rock group who we have adopted as a company for New Zealand Music Month. It just seemed like a good idea to promote two great things at the same time.”

Mike Pero was also taken by the girls’ enthusiasm; “I just want them to do well. When Mike Mayell called me I was impressed with their can-do attitude. Theresa and Kathy are an inspiration. We need people who have a vision and then the courage to act. Even in these supposedly gloomy times. We have to get behind people who want to have a go and create businesses and jobs.”

The Cookies will be available on Trademe from 7.30pm on Thursday 16 April.

Ends

For more Information please contact: Michael Henstock 027 224 2074

Background Infomation
On Fri 13th of February 2009 Theresa Cowan & Kathy Dryfhout won an auction on Trademe for the 60 seater Spagalimis Restaurant at the Northlands Mall Papanui Christchurch.
The original owners, who have a number of restaurants in Christchurch, wanted to focus on their new award winning Restaurant in Victoria St.

The cost of breaking their lease and returning the restaurant to an empty shell was prohibitive so the family decided to auction off the restaurant with no reserve.
Cowan & Dryfhout were fortunate enough to purchase the restaurant for $181.00.

The restaurant is at the northern end of the mall and is situated between the car park and the front doors which also lead to the Hoyts Movie centre.

The restaurant will trade up until takeover and is still turning over a profit with one staff member and no marketing.

Since that fateful day the girls have had an unprecedented amount of support from all over New Zealand and have had a huge amount of media coverage

Restaurant Theme

Due to the unique circumstances of the purchase of the Restaurant, for $181 off Trademe, Cowan & Dryfhout have decided to keep this theme and have called the restaurant ‘181’. In keeping with the Trademe theme, they are installing a computer system for customers to order their meals and be able to trade on the Trademe website, while sitting at their tables via a table mounted touch screen interface.