It’s run out of a 120-year-old dilapidated former dairy factory. The menu is straight out of the 1980s. There’s a doll collection and a resident ‘ghost’.

What will become of Forta Leza now its owners want to sell up?

“I like old things,” says Mary Belcher, standing amongst a collection of 19th Century dresses.

“I’m not interested in modern trends,” says her husband, Haydn, serving up an entrée of deep fried Camembert.

If you’ve come to the Forta Leza Country Inn looking for a fancy dish or modern fittings, you’re out of luck.

Perched on the edge of SH2 near Katikati - one of the country’s most dangerous stretches of road - the restaurant, owned and run by the Belchers since 1979, is proudly kitsch.

From the outside, the 1902-era building looks so run-down you’d think it was abandoned.

Forta Leza, near Katikati, was built in 1902 and used to be a dairy factory.Photo: Christel Yardley/Waikato Times.

The cavernous interior is like a strange museum, with old farm equipment, stuffed animals, a sewing machine collection and a musty-smelling room for the aforementioned dresses.

“I felt like I was in a time warp,” someone wrote in a review on Tripadvisor. That about sums it up - it’s like the Restaurant Where Time Stood Still.

Haydn is proud that, other than a couple of extensions, nothing has been touched in the 45 years he’s been here.

Don’t dare suggest it looks like the building has seen better days. “When you get to 120, you will too,” he snaps.

“Why would you change it? People say ‘it looks a a bit scruffy on the outside’ - I say, ‘yeah, well it’s nice on the inside’.

“You could spend $100,000 on the front of it, put shades over the windows and things. They don’t come here to look at the building - they come here for what they get on their plate.”

Haydn Belcher says he's not interested in modern dining trends.Photo: Christel Yardley/Waikato Times.

Customers, mostly locals, seem to love it, judging by the number of four and five star reviews online.

“Our meals aren’t jazzy,” Mary says. “We just do what we do ... and if you like it, that’s great and if you don’t, well ...”

The problem is, Haydn says, his clientele is “dying on me”.

Two of his best customers, who come every Wednesday, are aged 91 and 87. They have a bottle of wine and the same dish every time - grilled fish ($37).

Other mains options include ham steaks with pineapple ($32), pork kebabs with mushroom and cream sauce ($37) and scotch fillet ($37.50).

Entrées include old favourites like shrimp cocktail ($15.50) and lamb kidneys on toast with bacon ($18).

Haydn, 74, cooks it all, putting in up to 12 hours a day in the kitchen. Mary works front-of-house, arriving at 7am and flitting about the place like a bird making its nest.

Haydn Belcher with deep fried squid and Camembert dishes.Photo: Christel Yardley/Waikato Times.

They also offer “gourmet” pizzas, which online reviewers have complained are made using store-bought bases. (The Belchers say they’ve sometimes done that, but have gone back to making their own dough.)

They don’t advertise it, but there’s a surprise for diners upstairs in what Mary calls the “girls’ room”: a huge display of more than 100 lifelike porcelain and vinyl dolls by Dunedin artist Jan McLean, which Mary, 69, has been collecting for many years.

The dolls have names, wear 19th Century dresses, and are arranged around antique furniture.

In the visitor book, people have written comments such as “fantastic” and “stunning”, but someone has scribbled: “Creepy”.

Forta Leza has a large gallery dedicated to Jan McLean’s lifelike dolls.Photo: Christel Yardley/Waikato Times.

It’s usually kids who say that, Mary says - they’ve been watching too many horror movies.

“They don’t know what they’re talking about. You cannot not like these dolls, they’re beautiful.

“A lot of men like them too - I don’t mean for that side of it - they can see the workmanship that goes into them.”

It’s one of the country’s biggest collections of award-winning McLean dolls and the couple had planned for the exhibit to be a money-maker. But it didn’t work out and now they just ask for a gold coin donation.

Some people find the dolls creepy, but Mary Belcher says they’re beautiful.Photo: Christel Yardley/Waikato Times.

Before it was a restaurant, the building was used as butter factory for the first half of the 20th Century - the floor still slopes as the workers used to hose everything into a river that runs past the site.

After the factory closed in the 1950s it was used to store chemicals and at one point was home to 2000 Muscovy ducks.

In 1972 it was converted into a restaurant by an alternative lifestyler called Gary Rand, who named it Forta Leza after a fort in Portugal.

The decor was Spanish-style - “everything was orange”, Haydn says - but Rand’s vegetarian menu was a disaster in meat-loving, 1970s New Zealand.

Also, he couldn’t cook, Haydn says. “He’d burn water.”

Haydn’s parents, Rob and Norma Belcher, bought the land and buildings in 1979 and with Haydn in charge, Forta Leza took off.

In its 1980s heyday, large groups would bus from Tauranga for work functions, weddings and 21st parties, and there was live music.

The couple have some classic stories, like the time they hosted a “big posh wedding” and the groom ran off with the bridesmaid.

More recently, they’ve fallen on hard times. The pandemic was tough - they got by with the help of wage subsidies totalling $136,000, according to the Ministry of Social Development website.

Since then costs have skyrocketed and business is still down by about a third from pre-Covid days, Haydn says, “but we’re doing better than some places”.

Mary and Hayden Belcher have owned Historical Forta Leza Country Inn since 1979.Photo: Christel Yardley/Waikato Times.

He and Mary haven’t had a holiday together since 1988, and they’ve decided it’s time to move on.

But the council wants an earthquake report done and they can’t sell until that process is complete.

Haydyn is sure the place is “solid as a rock”, but knows an inspector will probably find faults.

“It could be absolutely devastating [financially], or it could be not so bad, I really don’t know.”

He says they’ll have to sell the land, buildings and business as a package, as leasing it out is not an option. “If [a business] had to pay rent on this, they’d go broke”.

He’s horrified at the idea someone might buy the property and bowl the place, but accepts it’s out of his control.

They hope a younger couple will buy the property, which has a rateable value of $1.3m according to records, and the business, and revitalise it.

Mary: “A lot of people say to us, ‘you can’t sell’, ‘we got engaged there’, ‘we got married there’, ‘my son had his 21st there’. But we’ve got 25 years of our own life left - we want to do something.”

A room at Forta Leza is set aside for Mary Belcher’s dress collection.Photo: Christel Yardley/Waikato Times.

Whoever takes over will have to contend with a resident ‘ghost’ that Mary says comes out some mornings, mainly in winter.

“I’ve seen it a couple of times ... when I’ve been here on my own. It just sort of moves, like it’s floating, from one side of the building to the other.

“I feel very lucky that we’ve got somebody else here from the past.”

A visitor once told her there was a portal to the spirit world upstairs.

Haydn’s a non-believer. “I haven’t seen it,” he mutters, “where are ya?”.

Mary: “You’re not the sort of person who would meet one.”

The place may or may not be haunted, but Haydn reckons it’s definitely unique.

“I’d like to know if there’s any [restaurant] in New Zealand who’s done 45 years in one building in the same place, and it hasn’t changed its name. I’d be surprised.”

Tony Wall/Stuff