Nelson & Golden Bay, Family Restaurants

  • Park Cafe - Marahau

    Our Park Café restaurant is situated at the entrance to Abel Tasman National Park so you can visit us before or after your walk in the park. We overlook the start of the Abel Tasman track and the restaurant has a casual ambiance, in keeping with its natural surroundings. The Café offers breakfast, lunch and dinner menu plus scrumptious snacks. Leave room for their delicious chocolate brownie slice – one of the best we’ve tasted! Dinner menu includes fresh fish, seafood pasta, lamb shanks, steak, chicken and vegetarian dishes. Small portions for children can be ordered.

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  • Totos Cafe & Pizzeria - Takaka

    Totos is a unique café - pizzeria & gallery located next to the Abel Tasman National park 10km from Totaranui campground. The café is surrounded by bush, with an amazing view on Wainui Bay (stop on before or after your walk to Wainui Falls). Because we care for this beautiful environment, the cafe has been built using natural materials. Using on-site earth and a combination of local and recycled timbers. We also generate all our electricity with micro-hydro and solar panel, and our water comes from a source on the property.Come and enjoy what our little café-pizzeria can offer amongst some of New Zealand's finest natural surroundings!

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  • Jellyfish Cafe & Bar - Mapua

    Great food with Mediterranean influences – come and enjoy our seaside café and bar right on the wharf at Mapua. Open for breakfast lunch and dinner and with a great kids menu and options available.

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  • Penguino Gelato Cafe - Nelson

    Penguinos is a Nelson institution and has a reputation for great ice cream and gelato.  They continually create and refine wonderful new flavours, providing superb gelatos for regular customers as well as the many tourists who flock to Nelson in the summer months.  Creative and exuberant, you will have fun trying extraordinary flavours not normally associated with ice creams. 

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  • Happy Valley Adventures Cafe

    Come and enjoy a light meal at our fully licensed cafe set in our attractive garden.

    The fully licensed cafe is welcoming, a place to unwind and discuss the excitement of the day. During summer you can sit on the wide sunny deck; in winter the log fire is kept stoked and blazing.

    Before you leave, stroll down to hand feed the tame emus and pet sheep. Or you could sit on the riverbank beneath the shade of a willow tree, and watch the eels and trout feeding in the crystal clear water.

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  • Jester House - Motueka region

    A country café, serving breakfast, lunch and ‘inbetweens’. Once you walk over the trip trop bridge past the tame eels you enter another world. The funtastic café garden is full of art and surprises. You can play chess on the giant wooden chess board or tell the kids to "get lost" in the maze. Let them enjoy the playground while you take some time to smell the roses. Take a wander and enjoy the various sculptures that you discover and be surprised by what you find. Meanwhile the tame eels live in the creek below the bridge waiting to be fed. Eel food is available from the café, $5 for the real eel deal.

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  • Old School Cafe, Bar and Restaurant - Collingwood

    The Old School Cafe is located half way between Collingwood and Farewell spit. The Cafe is in the original building that was once the house of learning for the children of Pakawau. Open for lunch and dinner there is plenty on the large black board menu to suit all. Indoor and outdoor dining with a full bar, pool table and dart board.

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  • Lambrettas Cafe and Bar - Nelson

    An Italian theme prevails with pizzas, pastas and smoked antipasto, all of gargantuan proportions to challenge even the heartiest appetite. Children are welcome here – we have a special tots menu, and there's even a safe, enclosed play area with toys to keep them entertained. Lambretta's operates a healthy, 'minimal fried food' policy and provides double filtered water, literally on tap. Tots’ Tummy Ticklers menu includes plain steamed pasta, nachos, pasta with cheese, grilled fish and baby pizzas.

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  • The Grape Escape Cafe

    Whether stopping by for lunch, brunch or afternoon tea, enjoy the ambiance of this cosy café, relax on the deck or outdoors under a sun umbrella or in the shade of a tree enjoying the garden. Great fresh food and coffee!

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  • Smugglers Pub and Cafe

    The Smugglers Pub and Cafe is famous for its hearty meals, foaming craft ales and great wines all served up in a unique old world atmosphere with a 'Pirate atmosphere' the kids will love. Located within easy walking distance from Nelson’s Tahunanui Beach. Food is available all day and into the evening with extensive snack, lunch and dinner menus including gluten free and children’s menus for young smugglers. Open seven days a week including most holidays and absolutely no surcharges ever.

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Map of New Zealand
  • Central Otago
  • Auckland
  • Bay of Plenty
  • Christchurch
  • Dunedin
  • Coromandel
  • Gisborne
  • Fiordland
  • Marlborough Sounds
  • Manawatu
  • Northland
  • North Canterbury
  • Queenstown
  • South Canterbury
  • Taranaki
  • Southland
  • Taupo
  • Wanaka
  • Waikato
  • Wellington
  • West Coast
  • Whangarei
  • Bay of Islands
  • Tauranga
  • Gisborne
  • Hamilton
  • Napier
  • Kapiti
  • Palmerston North
  • Whanganui
  • New Plymouth
  • Arrowtown
  • Te Anau
  • Akaroa
  • Ashburton
  • Hanmer
  • Kaikoura
  • Methven
  • Mt Cook
  • Oamaru
  • Tekapo
  • Timaru
  • Abel Tasman
  • Motueka
  • Nelson Lakes
  • Blenheim
  • Picton
  • Catlins
  • Gore
  • Stewart Island
  • Central Plateau
  • Invercargill
  • Cromwell
  • Greymouth
  • Hokitika
  • Westport
  • Glenorchy

Our favourite destinations…

Auckland

New Zealand’s economic heart and biggest city is also an exciting family visitor destination, situated on a sunny harbour with city beaches just minutes away from the CBD. Orientate yourself by heading down to Viaduct Harbour, wandering the waterfront, checking out the super yachts or enjoying the waterfront restaurants. Nearby is the must-visit Sky Tower along with excellent and kid-friendly museums and tons of exciting activities!

Wellington

Wellington is New Zealand’s capital. Here you will find New Zealand's parliament buildings, including the 'Executive Wing', more well-known as 'The Beehive' due to its distinctive shape. Another icon to look out for is the Wellington Tram, which was the main means of public transport between 1878 and 1964.

Christchurch

With a population of around 400,000 Christchurch, in Canterbury, is the South Island ’s largest city, yet much of it has the feel of a small town. Perhaps that’s why it’s known as the Garden City but with the expansive Hagley Park, Botanic Gardens, Port Hills, River Avon and numerous beaches the city certainly has an open, relaxed feel that’s hard to beat.

Queenstown

With its well-deserved reputation as New Zealand’s activity adventure capital you’ll never run out of activities and things to do in Queenstown, but you may run out of time! With breathtaking scenery, activities and festivals, cafes and restaurants, skiing and snowboarding, shopping and wineries, this lakeside alpine resort rates as one of the world’s top vacation destinations for all ages and seasons.

Rotorua

Rotorua sits on the shore of Lake Rotorua, one of sixteen lakes in the area formed by hundreds of thousands of years of eruptions from the Taupo Volcanic Zone. The area is renowned for its geothermal activity and top of any activity list is to see the bubbling mud pools that are around the region for yourself. The Waimangu Volcanic Valley offers a first hand insight into the devastation caused by the 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera and is a great place to discover steaming volcanic craters and bubbling, spitting  pools of mud!

Nelson and Golden Bay

The Nelson and Golden Bay regions, at the top of the South Island, boast enviable sunshine hours, glorious sandy beaches, safe swimming spots, lots of wildlife to look out for, and Abel Tasman National Park - an absolute must to explore, on foot, by kayak, your own craft or watertaxi.  Nelson is home to a vibrant arts and crafts community with a fabulous Saturday market, and is close to award-winning wineries and family-friendly bike tracks to take you around the coast.

Hawkes Bay

Napier was rebuilt after the 1931 earthquake and is now known as NZ's Art Deco City.  The Art Deco influence has created a unique city – nowhere else can you see such a varied concentration of art deco style. With over 2,200 sunshine hours a year, Napier is a year-round holiday destination with countless activities to entertain the kids – there's days of entertainment on Marine Parade alone, plus numerous other family-friendly trips and activities.  Add to that the beaches, walks and flat cycle paths, outdoor cafes and entertainment, and you have a perfect holiday destination!

Northland

Beautiful, unspoiled beaches, fishing, historic gum fields, kauri forests – the Far North has it all. With subtropical temperatures, it's often known as ‘the Winterless north', with warm, humid summers and mild winters.
Gateway to the Bay of Islands, Paihia is a pretty, lively beachside town and a perfect base for your family holiday. It’s your start point for Bay of Island adventures including day cruises, sailing, kayaking, swimming with dolphins and reef or wreck diving.