Wellington Spotlight: Mike Ny’s Bold Vision Behind Food Envy and Glou Glou

Mike Ny is the owner of Wellington’s award-winning catering business Food Envy and espresso bar Glou Glou. He’s also an experienced engineer and property developer with a bold vision to invigorate the Capital. Kate de Lautour caught up with Mike and started by asking him, how does he manage his time?

“I don’t really have time and that’s why I went on the Owner Manager Programme, to try and find a balance,” Mike says. “If I used the excuse of not having enough time, then I was never going to get into the Icehouse, but I knew if I didn’t, there was a real chance I was going to burn out.”

Graduating as a structural engineer, Mike worked on projects in Wellington, including medium high rise commercial projects and a stint in construction management in Thailand. Back in Wellington for the summer in 2018 Mike offered to help his brother-in-law for a few weeks with his catering business Food Envy.

A few weeks turned into a few months and then a year, but Mike saw the potential of the business and was enjoying the change of focus.

“Hospitality was always something I wanted to get into, and we started to grow the business pretty fast.”

Outgrowing their current premises, a new 10-year lease was signed in a central location. At 255 sqm the floor space was five times the size of the previous site.

“I was able to use all my property and engineering experience to purpose-build the commercial kitchen. We designed and built it ourselves. Move in date was February 2020 and then bam, Covid hit and shut us down.”

Like for so many at the time it was a shock. Lending had been committed and 90 per cent of the fit out was complete.

Food Envy quickly became the Wellington hub for smaller hospitality groups to work from during that time.

“We had a delivery fleet and created a group called the Pandemic Pack which was like Uber Eats before that got popular. We turned our office into a pop-up restaurant, and we launched at-home meals like everyone else. Anything, just to keep the doors open.”

Coming out of lockdowns, the catering business took off, as Wellingtonians partied at home with limited overseas travel. As caterers, Mike wanted a different spin on the traditional model.

“I wanted catering to be more mainstream hospitality, like when you think about the best places to eat, I wanted people to think about Food Envy.”

Retaining a large number of staff and keeping them engaged in the catering business led Mike to think about a new venture – their own eatery.

"One of the things I learnt from Covid was the benefit of some form of vertical integration, to avoid the risk of being reliant on one channel.”

With one centralized kitchen, the diversification into espresso bar and soon to be wine bar Glou Glou works well.

Taking inspiration from Melbourne, Mike obsessed over making the café unique for Wellingtonians and visitors to the Allen Street location. The team spent six months in research and development, testing recipes and ingredients with a mission to create the best pastries the City had ever seen.

"When we opened in January 2024 it went viral. There were lines out the door and along the street, there was an hour-long wait in the weekends. It was absolutely nuts. We were getting complaints because we were selling out. We doubled production and we still couldn’t keep up.”

The cost-of-living crisis hit the city and mass redundancies saw business taper off. Mike saw an opportunity to jump into Icehouse’s Owner Manager Programme.

While all the business owners in Mike’s group were from different businesses, the similarities have surprised him.

“When we first walked into the room I thought I’m not going to get on with these guys, none of us are in the same field.”

Happily proved wrong, Mike adds some of the group are now his closest friends.

“We are all such a motivated group. It doesn’t matter what the industry is, we are all going through the same high’s and low’s – going through the Programme with them all was amazing.

We’ve been through a lot together and for me, some of the hardest times I’ve had in my business career were in 2024. I lost sight of the company at times and felt like it was going to collapse on me. We were able to open up to each other as a group of business owners and right now it feels like we’ve all turned it around.

The way I make decisions now are a lot more deliberate and considered and that’s helping me find a better balance with the way I manage my time.”

Plans to extend Glou Glou to a wine bar have been held off for now until things start to pick up. Mike’s picking mid-year for a resurgence.

The downturn hasn’t stopped Mike from his love of Wellington. Sponsoring the Saints basketball team and working with the Phoenix FC provides value-driven work for the Food Envy team. Mike has plans to grow the restaurant scene in Wellington with fresh ideas around commercial property developments incorporating hospitality venues.

“There’s a new wave of hospitality coming to the City and I want to make it easier for good operators to get into the mix. We have a lot to be positive about.”