Life in the slow lane . . .

Making a living from what you love doing sounds like a fantasy. AMANDA MORRALL talks to three retailers who are living the dream.

You have to love a job where if you need to spend the day at home with a sick kid you can paste a sticky note on the shop door with a cellphone number for customers to call.

Such is the laidback etiquette that defines a hip-without-trying trio of retailers found on a historic, tree-lined street in the rural-urban refuge that is the Heathcote Valley about 5 kilometres from the centre of Christchurch.

The antithesis of the slick, spit-shined shop fronts on High Street, the shop owners of Station Rd, Heathcote are, unwittingly, a model of the elusive but highly enviable sustainable work-life existence.

All three live within walking distances of their shops. They work hours to suit their personal lives. And they specialise in goods or products of a local, organic or fair-trade flavour.

Organic tofu maker Bernie McLean of Bean Me Up says he shirked the city commute 17 years ago and hasn't looked back.

With a 30-second commute from his home to shop - stationed on a sprawling corner section across from a turn-of-the-decade drinking hole - McLean has freed up stacks of time and money.

Five years ago he did the maths and calculated that in 12 years' time he'd saved himself $80,000 in petrol.

"And that was back when petrol was cheap. Scary, eh?" Like most entrepreneurs, McLean admits he had some doubts about whether it would work. Particularly living and working in such close proximity.

"I thought, 'Ah, it's too close to home.' But it's not actually at home here. It's worked out great, especially starting so early."

McLean jokingly calls his business neighbours lazy over their civilised shop hours (one 7am- 4pm, other other 10am- 4pm) but with a 6am start, it's fair to say he is the early bird on the block.

Then again, with only three official trading days (he and his wife Ruth indulge buyers who phone or pay them a visit at home) he concedes leisure time is not an issue.

But it wasn't always that way. When he went into the business 25 years ago, it was full-on and then some.

"Years ago, I used to do 80 hours a week, but I don't do that any more and we don't have the demand we had back then," says the towering tofu manufacturer who looks more like a surgeon than a soy-bean sculptor in his crisp white scrubs.

When McLean and his wife took over the business they were the only organic tofu suppliers in the South Island. There are seven now.

While most retailers might be threatened by the competition, McLean is zenner than zen.

"Anyway, who wants to work every day? Really!" McLean's chilled-out business attitude inspired his coffee roasting neighbour Justin Good to give it a shot, with Upshot.

Tired of what was becoming an increasingly corporatised treadmill at his former job, Good decided he had nothing to lose but stress in casting off convention and going it alone. He says McLean put him up to it.

"He said: 'What's stopping you? There's a perfectly good space around the corner'." Good took his advice to heart, transforming a ramshackle closet of a space into a robust but relaxed standing room-only coffee bar.

Putting his personal values to work in the form of a fair-trade organic coffee shop was surprisingly easy, he says.

The earthy aroma of coffee beans roasting in Good's copper kiln is now as distinct as the early morning mist that wafts through the valley.

Locals are a mainstay of his business but as a rare roaster of fair-trade organic coffee, Upshot is also a supplier to several delis and restaurants around town.

And word of mouth has grown to the point where customers will come from across town to restock the bean jar or get a caffeine fix.

Outside interest is welcome but not something Good or his neighbours actively pursue. All three disdain sales and profess a lack of interest in or time to market, contrary to the small business manual to success.

Their indifference adds to their charm.

While plans are afoot for a rustic/retro-style upgrade at Upshot, regulars are just as happy slugging back coffee from lawn chairs set out camp-style on the grass in front of the shop. And four years on, the shop remains a cash-only outfit.

Normally, this might be an impediment to business, but in keeping with the characteristic nonchalant attitude that defines the community, credit is an easy issue for trustworthy types and regulars.

Otherwise, customers are sent next door to Blackbird, a nifty wee gift shop run by a groovy young mum named Mel Edwards.

The retro raven-haired owner (who boasts the only eftpos machine) doesn't mind playing bank for customers seeking beans or tofu on either side of her, giving the area more of a communal feel than a commercial one. Edwards says the grassroots, feel-good dynamic just goes with the territory.

The story of how she came to acquire Blackbird just over a year ago is a case in point.

Fresh off a small business course and casting about for employment alternatives to better suit a mother of two, Edwards was jogging past the store (then under different ownership) and saw it was closing.

Disheartened by the loss of one of her favourite shops, she later spotted it for sale while trawling Trade Me. A few phone calls and emails later, and she was the proud new owner.

"It's freaky the way it happened," Edwards reflects.

To start, she traded three days a week working around childcare drop-offs and pick- ups. With growing demand, she's bumped it up to four days a week.

Edwards says friends can't believe her luck or the fact that she's been able to find a way to make a living and still be a mum without the usual stress of frustrated bosses, revolving babysitters, and taxiing children all over town.

"Everyone laughed at me because I said I'd wanted a flexible job and was going into retail. Everyone said, 'No way, when you're in retail it's 24/7' but I was adamant I could make it work. Thankfully, it's worked really well."

On days when daughter Hazel, almost two, or three- year-old Ella get sick, Edwards says she doesn't feel bad about leaving notes for customers to call her at home if they'd like to buy something.

In fact, her human realities make her business all the more appealing. At least that's the feedback she gets.

"Everyone is so nice, it's not that pressure-pressure that you get elsewhere . . . and really there's been no major challenges," she says cheerfully.

None?

"I guess over Christmas things got a bit mad and I wasn't prepared for that. Everybody just gets this chilled feeling when they come down here."

If Edwards, McLean and Good have found an entrepreneurial Eden in Heathcote, all of them claim it has more to do with luck than design.

They say their off-the- beaten-track location - not far from where pioneers landing in Lyttelton blazed a trail on the steep, craggy slopes of the Port Hills - was an unlikely place to find commercial success.

Good's wife and business partner, Megan Geels, says convenience was a decisive factor in choosing a location.

"A lot of people, when we first opened up, thought we were completely and utterly mad. They thought why did we set up here in the middle of nowhere. And we thought why not?! It's close to home."

McLean, who owns all three buildings along the strip, says his foray into the tofu business was only ever meant to be short- term. He chalks up his longevity and his enviable work/life balance to sheer good luck.

"I'd planned to be in this for a maximum of only five years because that was as long as I'd manage to stay in any other business.

"I thought it would have a five-year demand and then become one of those things nobody wanted."

He couldn't have been more wrong.

- © Fairfax NZ News