Lee-Marie and Kanvar Nayer decided they wanted to move to Queenstown after holidaying here in 2022.
Back home, Kanvar, a lecturer at Monash University, was craving something sweet so Lee-Marie made him a macadamia cookie.
She made so many he brought them to his work colleagues who started placing orders — they also sold them as "a side hussle" at the golf course restaurant they lived near.
Pre-empting their move, they even called it the Remarkable Cookie.
"We were very time-poor in Melbourne and our son [now 8] was being raised by technology, so we thought, ‘let’s make the move’," Kanvar says.
"We knew we had a business idea that could potentially work."
Their idea was Lee-Marie would then bake cookies at home in Queenstown.
But Kanvar’s workmates had given him a going-away gift voucher for Country Lane’s Black Lab Coffee Roasters.
Collecting his coffee, he found a bakery in a transplanted former Queenstown motor park cabin, opposite, was closing.
"It was incredible timing and we just sort of went for it."
Owning a cafe had also been Lee-Marie’s and her dad’s dream, too.
Having operated for almost a year, they have not looked back.
After the cookies are prepped the day before, Lee-Marie bakes them each morning before they open the doors.
She makes 100 New York-style cookies each day — "a bigger cookie that’s crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside".
Any left over they deliver to frontline workers — "easily over 900 to date", Kanvar says.
He handles social media, accounts and deliveries, and helps Lee-Marie serving customers.
He says mixing with their regulars is what they like most.
And in Queenstown’s high-rent retail sector, they are very grateful for Country Lane’s cheaper outgoings.
"We’ve got lovely landlords, they’re really trying to help everyone out, like small businesses.
"It’s like a family here, that’s what we love about it."
