Café owners apologise to Peter Jackson after wrongly accusing filmmaker of forcing them out
The owners of a popular seaside café in Wellington, New Zealand, have issued a public apology to Sir Peter Jackson and his partner, Dame Fran Walsh, after falsely claiming the couple were responsible for forcing it to shut down. Penny and John Pennington, who run the Chocolate Fish Café, said in a statement on Wednesday that they had mistakenly attributed the end of their tenancy to Jackson and Walsh, and that their earlier comments had been “without foundation”. “On Tuesday 30th September, we were informed by our landlord, Wingnut PM, that our tenancy at Shelly Bay will end on 31 January 2026. This was unexpected and came as an enormous shock to us,” the statement read, according to RNZ. “Regrettably and without foundation, we assumed Sir Peter Jackson and Dame Fran Walsh were responsible for the decision. However, we were wrong. “We deeply regret our mistake and sincerely apologise for misleading the public and for any offence to Sir Peter and Dame Fran. We are issuing this apology of our own volition.” The Lord Of The Rings director and Walsh purchased the Shelly Bay site in 2023 after a long-running development dispute between Wellington City Council and private investors. The couple have said they intend to return the harbourside area, which was once a defence base, to its “natural beauty” and create a public space that includes restored heritage buildings and a potential museum or exhibition centre. The apology comes after public backlash over the cafe’s social media posts. “Despite our requests, we haven’t yet been given the opportunity to speak with Peter and Fran directly, and we are asking for that chance. After 15 years of building this community together, we don’t want the laughter of kids on bikes, the joy of giving well-behaved dogs their TUX biscuit, the clink of coffee cups, or the sight of big bikes leaning outside to simply disappear forever,” a now-deleted post on their Instagram from earlier this month read. “We don’t want to be forced to close. We don’t want to be shut down. We want the chance to keep going, or at least to say goodbye properly with one more long, beautiful summer.” WingNut PM, the property arm of Jackson and Walsh’s WingNut Group, issued a statement clarifying that the matter was the result of long-running “occupancy discussions”, about necessary restoration works on the century-old Submarine Barracks building the café occupies that would make it impossible for the business to remain beyond January. The company said it had been in talks with the café’s owners since early 2024 and that “substantial remedial work”, including roof replacement, restoring the building’s frontage, and additional renovation was necessary. The remedial work is intended to “reinvigorate the city and provide a public amenity for all Wellingtonians to enjoy,” they told NZ Herald Daily. WingNut PM said it had offered support to allow the café to remain open into the summer season while works were planned. The cafe will stay open until the end of January 2026. “Between now and then, we and our amazing team look forward to welcoming Wellingtonians and visitors alike to enjoy the legendary Chocolate Fish experience,” the Penningtons wrote. The Penningtons said they are exploring options for relocating once their lease expires. “Penny and I love what we do and and we are getting apparently endless amounts of offers and suggestions. We would hope that we can go right through [to the] 31st of January and then make some decisions, if we haven’t already, by then,” said John Pennington.