New ownership for Mercer pub

After 10 years in hospitality, the Mercer Landing Kitchen and Bar has a new owner.

Despite owning several different businesses in the past, such as a florist’s shop and a toy hire business, Charlotte Anderson has always loved hospitality and wanted to own her own bar. When she was approached about buying the Mercer Landing Kitchen and Bar, she thought, “why not?”

“It was probably around November of last year that we started to talk about buying the Mercer Landing, and then it became official on Christmas Eve.”

As well as the kitchen and bar, she also owns the Mercer Hotel, which shares the same building as the restaurant, and for licensing purposes, she bought them both. Despite being in the same building, they are run as separate businesses.

Anderson says that one of the problems she is facing is getting the word out that the restaurant is in the area.

“Everyone knows that the motels here, since it’s been here for years, but the [Mercer] Landing is relatively new. Originally it was called The Last Post, and then Podgers Place and now it’s Mercer Landing Kitchen and Bar.

“Even the locals don’t know it exists, so the biggest challenges are getting the name out there and getting people to come,” Anderson said.

For the time being, Anderson does not plan to change anything about the restaurant. Despite adding new menus and changing little things, she plans to leave things as they are since the previous owners used the Covid-19 pandemic to renovate the hotel and restaurant from the ground up, making it an essentially new building.

Mercer sits alongside the Waikato River and has a rich history that dates back to the early days of European settlement in the country.