PHOTO
United States drive-through restaurant brand Popeyes has been given the green light to open its first site in Christchurch in Papanui.
Tahua Group Ltd, an Auckland-based company, has been granted a resource consent from the Christchurch City Council to open a site at 482 Papanui Rd, near the corner with Harewood Rd.
Popeyes initially wanted to open an outlet in the central city on the corner of Moorhouse Ave and Bath St following a resource consent application there last May. The application, which included a drive-through Starbucks, was withdrawn.
Tahua Group wants to demolish the existing buildings on the Papanui Rd site to build a dine-in and drive-through for Popeyes Famous Louisiana Chicken, the application said.
It has consent to stay open 24/7. However, the application says this may only be for the drive-through, as the dine-in restaurant will “more likely” be open from 6am to 2am.
The application included consent for 68 seats for customers inside. The applicant wanted a 265sqm building, with 93sqm reserved for diners. Pedestrian access would be via the main building entrance at the south corner of the site, the application says.
The company wanted permission for signage, “the biggest and most prominent” of which would be a pole or pylon sign at the corner of the site, the application said.
The site is about a minute’s walk from KFC Papanui, which sits on the other side of the road, and about a seven-minute walk from Northlands Shopping Centre.
It would be the second South Island branch, after a Popeyes restaurant opened in Invercargill last September. Its first site in the country opened in Auckland in April 2024.
- By Raphael Franks