Also known as: —
Location: 29 London Street, Lyttelton
Current status: Running
Active: 2007–present
History
The Lyttelton Coffee Company has called the heritage-listed J.D. Bundy building at 29 London Street home since 2007, when owner Stephen Mateer opened the café and began roasting coffee on the premises. The building dates to 1921 and is heritage-noted for its place in Lyttelton’s commercial streetscape, sitting on the main London Street strip that has long been the social and cultural spine of the port town.
Mateer built the business into one of Canterbury’s more respected specialty roasteries, supplying around 30 wholesale clients across the region while maintaining the café as a community gathering space. The venue is licensed and has offered live music alongside its coffee and roasting operation — an intimate room with harbour views from the back deck, well suited to the kind of stripped-back gigs that have defined Lyttelton’s music culture.
The February 2011 Canterbury earthquake badly damaged the 1921 building, leaving it in a precarious state. Rather than walk away, Mateer committed to a restoration that took around two and a half years to complete, carried out with the help of a small group of locals. The rebuilt space retained its character and resumed as both roastery and café. The episode became part of the venue’s story — a building and a business that chose to stay and rebuild, much like the Lyttelton community itself.
As a live music venue the Coffee Company has operated on the smaller, occasional end of the spectrum — intimate evening gigs rather than a full touring circuit, though well-regarded local and touring acts have appeared on the bill. Past performers include Glass Vaults, Pikachunes, Terror of the Deep, Coolies, ebony lamb, Vera Ellen, Jess Cornelius, and Kate Owen. The venue has also been part of the Port Noise Festival since its launch in 2023 — Lyttelton’s boutique music festival that spreads artists across multiple town venues on a single ticket.
The Coffee Company sits within a port suburb that has produced an outsized share of New Zealand music talent, with Aldous Harding, Marlon Williams, Nadia Reid, and Tiny Ruins all having strong connections to Lyttelton. While those artists forged their early careers in the town’s pubs and rehearsal spaces, the Coffee Company represents a more recent chapter in the story — a venue that has kept live music alive in the town through the post-earthquake rebuilding years and into the present.
The dark horse of Christchurch coffee roasting and supply, Lyttelton Coffee Company has been serving and roasting coffee since 2007, about the same time their London Street café opened. The February earthquake saw the iconic 1921 heritage-noted building severely broken but not defeated, and so owner Stephen Mateer decided to put it back together — a task that took around 2½ years to complete with the help of a small group of Lyttelton locals.
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