Pt Chevalier’s beloved Pasadena Bakery is returning under second-gen ownership

It feels as though as long as there’s been Point Chevalier, there’s been Pasadena Bakery. The humble green-signed bakery was an institution of the inner-city suburb for almost 30 years. You’d enter expecting a run-of-the-mill Kiwi bakery. You’d stay for the baked goods, which merged Vietnamese flavours with Kiwi Then in late 2024, Pasadena Bakery closed its doors – seemingly for good – as health issues and age forced Tui and her husband to step back.Just as the business was approaching the two-year mark of sitting dormant, new social media accounts appeared. A voice-over played over videos of the Has’ familiar faces, their daughter, Jenny Ha, announcing the bakery’s return under her ownership. The comments sections were flooded with excitement – particularly about their cream doughnuts and steak and cheese pies – from the community, proving just how missed it had been.Tui Ha and her husband, the original owners of Pasadena Bakery in Point Chevalier.“Come with me as I age 10 years a week, finding out what it really takes to run a family business,” Jenny Ha, who has no hospitality experience other than witnessing her parents run the bakery, says in the announcement video. Meeting her at the bakery (now a construction site), it was immediately clear that she inherited her mum’s warm, chatty presence. She welcomed me with a hug, a selection of snacks, and a complete openness of conversation.Mr Ha with the latest shipment.Behind the scenes, even before the closure, Jenny had been toying with the idea of taking over the bakery for half a decade. The final decision had been both a last-minute whim and the most strenuously considered decision of her life.Her apprehension came from an all-too-familiar fear for modern working parents – she didn’t want to spend all her time away from her young daughter, who is now 4 years old. And hospitality she learned as a child amplified that reality tenfold.“My parents had bakeries — not just this one — for over 40 years, so my siblings and I really grew up in this environment,” Jenny says.“They worked incredibly hard, which meant we didn’t always get as much time with them as we would have liked growing up.”Photo / Emma TavaiRunning such a beloved store meant that it was always busy. In hindsight, Jenny can appreciate how hard her parents worked, and how special it was to have such a strong community behind them that they had to show up for.But as a child, she recalls it being a hard pill to swallow – and one she was very apprehensive to pass down to her own daughter. Tui Ha pictured with her granddaughter.In her mid-to-late 20s, Jenny made and unmade the decision many times. Throughout, she worked across different corporate jobs and industries, moved overseas, and saved for a home.All the while, her parents were trying to sell, but she was managing the emails and watching the offers fall through. It wasn’t until this year that a “yes” actually stuck. Jenny believes that it was some form of divine intervention. “I’d been thinking about the bakery for a while, but I really wanted a home for my family and I knew financially I couldn’t do both,” she says. “There were a few times the bakery came close to selling and every time I remember thinking, ‘Oh no, there goes my chance’.“But then, for one reason or another, it wouldn’t happen. I’d seen over 100 houses in that time, and when the last offer fell through, I remember thinking, ‘This has to be because I’m meant to do the bakery.’ Very soon after, I found out I was being made redundant – and that was the last sign I needed.”The Has had always wanted one of their children to continue the family business, but none of them had ever been that interested. One thing Jenny had maintained throughout the process was that she wouldn’t tell her parents until she was “110% sure, because I knew there’d be no going back once they knew, because that’s their dream”.It was only as Jenny began to spend more time with her parents that the weight of continuing the family legacy began to sink in. Having watched her parents give so much of their time and love to this place, she knew that it couldn’t go to waste. The bakery was really like their family’s childhood home.Tui and Jenny Ha. Photo / Emma TavaiThere is much online discussion about what customers can expect when the doors reopen next month. In many ways, Jenny is curious about the same thing.“Even with all these huge learning curves, deciding on the colour scheme is one of the hardest,” she laughs.The space is set to look quite different, with new cabinets installed, original tiling uncovered, and coffee brands changed. But, to the relief of many, the recipes will be staying the same. Jenny, aware of her lack of experience in hospitality, knew she needed a team she could trust – and who could replicate her mother’s recipes perfectly, in order to avoid outrage from Pasadena-loyalists. Each week, the Has report to their old stomping grounds to host baking classes for the new team. The new owner of Pasadena Bakery, Jenny Ha (right), pictured with her head baker, Hayley Jamieson.Baker Hayley Jamieson is no stranger to the Has or their recipes. She started her culinary journey at Pasadena Bakery more than a decade ago, at just 18 years old.“I initially reached out to Hayley just to get her perspective on the industry and see how she thought I could make it work,” Jenny recalls. “She was already doing such amazing things, so it never even crossed my mind that she might want to come and do this with me. Then almost immediately she told me she’d actually been hoping I would reach out to her about reopening the bakery.”Hayley now works closely alongside Jenny and will be the head baker upon opening. And with Jenny finding out her consultant is someone who’d previously made an offer to buy the store, her hypothesis of divine timing doesn’t sound all that far-fetched.Reopening such a beloved place is undoubtedly exciting. But Jenny makes clear that it also comes with its fair share of pressures. She says she feels an immense responsibility to give back to the bakery’s community that, in her words, has “given her family so much”.Because the supporters have so much love for the place, they also have many opinions on what Jenny should and should not be doing. The Ha family, pictured in their family shop, Pasadena Bakery.“I didn’t realise how many people loved the bakery until I started posting about it online,” Jenny says. “But now I have this fear of letting even one person down, and it makes it really difficult for me to make decisions. It’s the same with my parents and my family ... This is probably why I can’t decide on a paint colour.”More on Auckland food