Trading hours:

Saturday and Sunday

10 am – 5 pm

Saddleback Café is a licensed café, established in February 2006.  The café is a real family affair – a partnership between mother and daughter, Alexandra, a local Ohariu Valley resident and her mother, Ingrid.  

Alexandra developed her passion for good quality home-style cooking and baking at an early age as their father, Michael, is very fussy about food quality, and has a great dislike for those “air-filled” bought biscuits from the supermarket.  So each weekend Ingrid would bake wonderful biscuits, slices and cakes for the family and the endless BBQ’s with great tasting salads over summer. 

Her passion continues today as she prepares freshly baked food on the premises.  Also being ‘green at heart’ she is continually aware of the environment and the ethical treatment of animals, so the use of free-range eggs is paramount, as is the use fresh produce.  Recycling is taken seriously as rubbish is collected and recycled where possible.

Alexandra is married to a local Ohariu Valley farmer, Ward, who is one of a rare breed of commercial farmers, living and working on a 600-acre sheep, cattle and horse farm, located between the city and the coast and only a 20-minute drive from downtown Wellington CBD.  He and his father Roy, a local for more than 40 years, are also in business together, with Ward managing the farm and Saddleback Cabin, and Roy managing the horse trekking business.  Together they both just happen to be the landlords of Saddleback Café.  

As they say - it’s all in the family!