Our Story

I have a huge love for South East Asia and all the amazing food that comes from there.  I usually spend at least a month there every year travelling around, eating as much as possible and soaking up the sun on the beaches.

Coco Hut was inspired by a trip to Bali from all the funky beach huts over there.  (This was in 2019 on my recovery from cancer holiday).

I was wondering where to go next with my life, and I had my food truck which I had previously used for doing catering and events, but had not worked for most of a year (as I was busy kicking cancer in the butt ) and was unsure of the next direction.

Anyway, I thought how cool it would be to do something really different, and bring my love for Asia and the beach to the mountains by transforming my food truck into a Bali beach shack and making some of my favourite food!  I had heard about the new food truck village being created and contacted the owner to see if I could get a spot and start planning!

My amazing boyfriend helped bring my ideas to life from a sketch.  I have no idea how to build anything but I have a wild imagination so he literally brought my dreams to life.

In a labour of love, I started to collect all the materials from all over NZ, including hand selecting driftwood from the West Coast for my surfboard sign, and sourcing beautiful bamboo from a farm in our very own Lake Hawea.  I found the gorgeous totara bench top where you order from up near Punakaiki, and we sanded it down and did our first attempt at Epoxy resin which came out great! ..there are even some coins from Asia hidden in there if you take a closer look!

There had been a lot of hesitancy to start this with Covid etc, but the borders being closed also made me miss Asia more and more, so I thought I should definitely make my own mountain beach hut to take me back…