Last July, my family moved to Taranaki from New Orleans, Louisiana, USA and I was quite excited to try anything New Zealand had to offer. Opunake was one of our first stops on our first drive in the area. We asked at the local surf shop where to eat and Sugar Juice was recommended. There is nothing like a good meal to make you feel at home. In Louisiana, we live to eat and there is a festival or two to choose from each weekend in the spring and fall celebrating everything from rice to crawfish,(the little kind, not lobsters). Sugar Juice turned out to be my favorite cafe while living there. Everything that we tried was fantastic. In fact I just looked up this site to see if I could read the menu and try my hand at some of the dishes I can’t stop thinking about. The breakfast is about the best I’ve ever had, and all the lunch specialties are yummy. I was always happiest when a wisp of a girl cooked the meal. We were only there for 6 months, 6 of the best of my super blessed life. My favorites were chicken pie, mushroom salad, rice cakes, and a breakfast dish that was a hash brown, mushroom, toast, egg, hollandaise, stack, all delectable. Wish I was sitting in the cozy courtyard.

One of the best cafes in Taranaki. The salads are always a delight, the muffins are scrummy and the breakfasts are sustaining. Coffee is truly superb and chill thrills are a real zing. No one makes an iced chocolate like these guys do. And it’s just a great place to be. It’s well worth the trip round the coast. Go there!

Fantastic food, amazing staff – I fully recommend you make the effort to drive round the coast to this cafe. I live in Hamilton and this place rivals any eating place we have over here. Heaps of choice and open waaaaay longer than I would have thought for a small country town!!