Auckland food businesses that started out at the markets

Nikita Joel only started selling her pistachio chocolate bars three weeks ago at the Auckland night markets. Now, she has hundreds of hungry patrons lining up for her stall, looking for a taste of the gooey, chocolatey, knafeh-filled treat.

With an equally busy online business, Joel has thousands of bars selling out online too. She has even just opened up a second kitchen to cope with demand.

Joel is among a rising number of success stories coming out of the local markets scene in Auckland, with many of those business owners going on to establish successful storefronts around the city.

RNZ speaks to four business owners who found similarly humble starts in carpark pop-ups, street-side foodtrucks and weekly spots at various markets around Auckland.

Whisked Creations by Niki, selling the 'viral Dubai chocolate bar'

Joel learned about the 'viral Dubai chocolate bar' when her friend sent her a video about it on TikTok. Joel is not that keen on eating chocolate herself, and she was not particularly fond of making it at first, but after some encouragement from her friend, she decided to give it a go.

"I'm not a sweet tooth, and I know it sounds weird, I'm a baker and I make chocolates for a living. But when I tasted the pistachio I was like, 'Damn, this is good' - obviously the wrong ingredients, something wasn't right, I needed to fix the texture and what flavours would go nicely and I had to custom blend the chocolate - but it was good."

That trial and error period was just four months ago. Joel finally launched the chocolate bars at the Papatoetoe night markets at the start of September. And by this time, word had clearly gotten around.

At the first night market, she sold out her entire range of chocolate bars - biscoff, nutella, peanut butter, bueno. By the second market, she had introduced her pistachio flavour, and sold about 800 bars by 9pm. Now, she has just debuted at the Botany night markets and has lines snaking around the entire venue.

"They were not ready for this, they were like, 'Oh Niki, you've created good havoc in the market today' ... people were waiting as soon as we arrived, I was in shock. They were running behind my car to get in line, my tent wasn't up and people were already lining up from one corner to another corner in the carpark, more than 100 people. It was a crazy moment for us."

Though the Dubai chocolate might be a momentary trend, Joel says her business is here to stay - she has just moved into a commercial kitchen and has a team of six people operting in the kitchen, office, social media and shipment across New Zealand.

"My social media has been going crazy ... people just want more and more, the demand gets higher and higher to this day."

Tokos Tacos, selling authentic birria and fish tacos

Ben Fonua and his son, Lelea, began selling their birria and fish tacos out of a small trailer just one-and-a-half years ago. The duo had just returned to New Zealand after spending 15 years in Arizona, right on the border of Mexico, and knew it was time to bring that authentic Mexican taste to the streets of west Auckland.

"I know from when I left here, the Mexican scene wasn't very good. While we were there, we loved our tacos, all our family and friends over there were Mexican, they took us to their spots, drew us recipes, and we brought back what we thought would work well here."

Fonua was working full time when he debuted at the Henderson night market, with a small grill packed inside a small vehicle. Then things got busier, the grill got bigger, and Fonua graduated to a wider trailer, serving up fresh tacos at the larger Papatoetoe and Pakuranga night markets. Both Fonua and his son were working and studying full time, but the business was growing so rapidly that it was time to go all in.

Just two months ago, the duo opened up the Tokos Tacos storefront in Avondale, with a nudge from the Avondale Business Association.

"We've had a beautiful response from the community so far ... we were just honoured that people were loving our food, even today the people from the night markets are coming to our shop now.

"Just the fact that people are willing to make the journey to get our food is an awesome thing. Good food brings people together ... and people love to see the food being made fresh on the spot, that helped us out a lot as well.

"It was very organic growth too, a lot of it was word of mouth, we had huge lines but our social media wasn't booming at the time. People were just telling each other."

Baby G Burger, selling American-style smash burgers

Just four years ago, Cam Blanchard decided to set up a pop-up selling American-style smash burgers in an industrial part of Henderson. He'd been making them at home and posting to a dedicated Instagram page, and people seemed to want a taste. Blanchard posted the location address - it was meant to be a one-off thing - and within an hour, all the burgers had sold out.

Blanchard was still new to Auckland at the time, having moved from the US. He did not have many connections yet and he was not sure how things worked. Still, he carried on with the carpark pop-ups and eventually started making connections with breweries and cafes, before jumping into the night market scene in Henderson. In October 2023, Blanchard finally opened up the Baby G Burgers store in Avondale.

"We operated strictly as a pop-up for four years ... [seeing the lines] was insane. I don't have a hospitality background at all, I've never worked in a restaurant in my life, never had dreams of opening a restaurant, it's just something I kind of fell into.

"Four or five years later, it just blows my mind, looking out from the grill and seeing some lines out the door, I'll never get used to it.

"I have the worst imposter syndrome like, 'You guys are here for my food? Really?' When we started, no one was really doing the kind of burgers that we're doing, I think we found a really good niche and really good timing with that, all incidentally.

"I never planned on opening a restaurant so I never realised that all these years I was building a following ... still to this day, I would say 80 percent of our customers are followers from the pop-up days rather than local people around the restaurant. I have regulars that come up from Hamilton, Pukekohe, weekly. It's pretty sick."

Fankery, selling Asian-fusion baked goods

Black sesame mochi, matcha burnt Basque cheesecake, and ube sable with taro jam are just some of the unique Asian-fusion baked goods available at Fankery. The Instagram-worthy treats are the work of Cathy Fan, who started her online bakery as a home-based operation before moving into a commercial kitchen in Glendene in 2022.

For the past two years, Fan has been working hard on the pop-up circuit, appearing at just about every market in Auckland - Smales Farm, Takapuna, Britomart, Howick, Ormiston, the list goes on. Fan has also collaborated with local cafes and restaurants like Hello Beasty, Kokako Coffee, and the University of Auckland.

Fankery's baked treats have attracted a loyal following online, with many fans even following them around the pop-up circuit. Next up, it is time to find a storefront. Fan is hoping to find an ideal location for a Fankery store in Eden Terrace or Newmarket.