It was always kind of comforting. Down The Strand's higher-end eating strip – with its offerings of $24 duck risotto, $23 seasonal gnocchi and $24 Lebanese fattoush salad – you could still get a mince and cheese pie and a cup of gumboot for under $10.

'Plain and simple; that's what we do, that's our success” says Nicky George, owner-operator of the Café on the Strand – a title perhaps just a tad grandiose for this common, garden variety but much-loved eatery.

It had me hooked for seven years – mainly because it was just a two-savoury stroll from my desk at The Weekend Sun.

Now she's going…well, she's gone. And I am sensing deep loss.

'I've had enough, I'm done,” sighs Nicky. 'I think it's got a lot harder. Maybe it's because I am tired.”

After 15 years, that black pinny with a liberal dusting of flour and dobs of scone dough, is going into the wash for the final time.

And that's sad. Because for the few miserable bucks I did spend at the Café on The Strand I'd get a ‘Nicky welcome' that had been percolating in the pie warmer since before dawn, there would be banter and gyp, there would be opinions – mainly mine – there would be the morning crossword and a passable long black. And the sensational sunrises over Tauranga. Sensational and free.

I would then be ready to face the world, ready for work.

But Nicky's over work, over this work.

She probably made damn near 60,000 scones in her tenure at that café.

'I did eat a few – but only because you have to be in touch with your product.”

She also used 20kg of bacon and 700 eggs a week – café minutiae is fascinating.

That's hospitality

Fascinating and understandable because bacon and eggs was the ‘go to' scoff at the Café on The Strand. Bacon and eggs and fruit cake were the big sellers.

You got margarine, not butter at the café.

'A business decision,” says Nicky.

Not always a popular decision but margarine is easier to spread and looks better on a spreadsheet.

Nicky was as loveable as she was irritating – terminally chirpy and smiling when all you wanted to do was grump about the world, and put an egg sandwich on tick, run up a few dollars.

'You can't do that anymore, that's what people have lost,” laments Nicky. 'You go into some places and they look as though they don't want to be there. But at the end of the day, you have to work and earn a living. So no matter what's happening at home, leave it at home. That's hospitality. It's not about you.”

But on the other side of the counter, over the platter of savoury scones, people are generally nice.

'Ninety-nine per cent are. The other one per cent wants to tell you how to run your business, and others come in all shitty and moody and looking for someone to take it out on. So you de-escalate – don't give them a reason to be horrible.”

Great! So she unwittingly becomes a facilitator, or counsellor, when all she wants to do is sell them some quiche.

Only free thing

The only free thing at the Cafe on The Strand is opinion. It's like the Kiwi big breakfast. Even if you haven't ordered it, you get the works – politics, Covid, religion and Covid again.

'Opinion is time-consuming and tiring,” says Nicky.

She's been earbashed by the worst.

'I just listen, I just stay neutral. I'm in business and if I said what I really wanted to say, it wouldn't go down well.”

This is a person who's given more than 15 years' worth of 10-hour days, six and seven days a week, to a business. To people like me.

'I don't have a social life, I don't have friends. The customers are my social interaction, they are my friends. I have to make do with people like you.”

Really? Perhaps she does need to get out of that café? It always surprised me, but apparently it's not surprising – Ozzies off the cruiseliners flock to her café for pies, a ham sandwich or chips.

'They're sick of ‘fancy' on the ship – they're looking for something simple.”

Nicky does simple. It's in her DNA – that's why there's a connection with so many.

Then on Monday Nicky will probably slip on her Asics and hit the blacktop.

'Running, my time, my thoughts, me and the footpath.”

Perhaps a holiday with husband Malcom, then a new job.

Thanks for the time Nicky – that goes for all of us. Do I still have anything on the tab?