Cheeky Llama Crew Takes Over SIT Café
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The team behind Cheeky Llama café in Queens Park has taken over Kahu Ariki, the café inside SIT's Centre for Creative Industries on Tay Street — and they came in with a plan. It follows a busy stretch for SIT's café scene: back in May, Emmanuel and Inov Listiarto, the husband-and-wife team behind mobile food business The Saucy Chook, took over the main campus café, rebranding it as Between Classes and introducing their signature chicken dishes alongside sandwiches, pies, desserts and fresh lemonades.
Kahu Ariki's new operator, café manager Verachai Lertpongvipusana — who goes by Ray — spotted the advertisement for a new operator and saw something worth pursuing. "When we first went there to have a look we saw a lot of potential in the setting of the café and the location and customers, but we saw that it still had not reached its fullest potential yet. When we decided to take over it was to bring Kahu Ariki to its fullest potential."
The operating team is a family affair. Ray runs the café floor alongside his partner, head chef Pornpawee Champakhao — Oil — while his sister Emily Lertpongvipusana serves as director. Brother Luke holds things together back at Cheeky Llama.
Ray knows SIT well. Originally from Thailand, he arrived in Invercargill in 2017, following Emily, who had made the move three years earlier. "Emily taught me a lot about this town, and it sounded very nice, so I followed her. I came to first study English, then continued to my main qualification; I graduated in business entrepreneurship (the Postgraduate Diploma in Business Enterprise) 2017-18." He later completed a Master of Information Technology, finishing his studies in the very building where Kahu Ariki now operates. "I had the opportunity to see Kahu Ariki at that time," he said — so the café was already on his radar before he ever thought about running it.
Oil arrived in 2020, already holding a Master of IT from Thailand, and moved into Invercargill's hospitality scene, cooking what she describes as "Kiwi food" across various local cafés and restaurants.
The menu at Kahu Ariki has been overhauled. The cabinet runs daily with homemade pies, sausage rolls, filo pastries, freshly filled bagels, and a selection of gluten-free and dairy-free cakes and slices. There is also a full all-day breakfast menu — big breakfast, eggs benedict, bacon butties, corn fritters, pancakes, chowder — available whenever the doors are open. The weekly lunch special rotates. "We normally change it every week," Oil explains, "so, sometimes it's going to be pasta, sometimes it's going to be a chicken salad or something like that." Burgers, pao buns, poke bowls — it shifts around, which is the point for regulars who eat there often.
The crowd is different from Queens Park. "People come from ICC (Invercargill City Council); some are police and even firefighters and all sorts of people," Ray said. SIT staff and students make up the base, but working people from the city centre have become regulars too. Ray describes it as quieter. "[It] offers a welcoming space where locals and visitors alike can enjoy great food made with passion. Cheeky Llama is more family friendly and is a destination café, so people go there because they're going to the park."
Some Cheeky Llama regulars have already made the switch. "We promote Kahu Ariki at Cheeky Llama as well," Ray said.
Kahu Ariki is open Monday to Friday, 7.30am to 2.30pm, with entry via Tay Street next to the Civic Theatre or Esk Street next to the ICC building.