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Kōrero: Restaurants and food outlets

Ivan's restaurant, Auckland, early 1980s

Ivan's restaurant, Auckland, early 1980s

Ivan's was a casual restaurant located on Auckland's Ponsonby Road between 1964 and 1995. It offered simple, affordable food like sausages, steak and chips, eggs and buttered white bread right up until it closed in 1995, the proprietors uninfluenced by the gentrification of the neighbourhood. These casually dressed daytime diners look very comfortable in Ivan's homely surrounds.  

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira

Reference: RMZ/sSOP57/454

by Robin Morrison

Courtesy of the Estate of Robin Morrison

Permission of the Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Perrin Rowland, Restaurants and food outlets – Re-licensing of New Zealand restaurants, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/photograph/39603/ivans-restaurant-auckland-early-1980s (accessed 4 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Perrin Rowland, i tāngia i te 30 November 2012.

Comments

Alan
04 November 2022
Ivan’s was an institution in its day. After 10 pm you would get a free pot of tea and half a loaf of buttered white bread with your meal. Mary the waitress was LEGEND, the same white smock, hair tied in a bun and a radiant smile. She never ever wrote anything down, never got the orders wrong at the table or the till, no matter how busy the joint was. I had not been for a year or two, she came to our table and after pleasantries and a bit of banter I started to give her my order, before I got to the “Can I please have” Mary shushed me and said in her Slavic tone “Don’t be so silly I know exactly what you have…..steak, 3 eggs 1/2 a dozen oysters and chips.” A LEGEND.