The second drive-through sushi restaurant in New Zealand has officially opened in Hastings.

But building a sushi restaurant on the site of a former petrol station built in the 1910s had its challenges.

On Wednesday, the new St Pierre’s Sushi and Bento Bowl restaurants opened on the corner of Heretaunga St West and Pākōwhai Rd in Stortford Lodge, a site that had sat empty since Caltex left the section in 2017.

Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazelhurst was there to cut the ribbon and 500 free sushi packs were given away to the public.

The new restaurant took 17 months to complete, from breaking ground in March 2024 to the opening.

The project’s environmental consultant Carl O’Brien said the build had plenty of challenges, including finding the former gas station’s three residual tanks.

“They all had to come out,” O’Brien said.

“The biggest challenge is the pea-metal backfill that they use around tanks is ... not geotechnically stable.”

Pea metal is an aggregate produced from crushed and graded rock used as a drainage or filtration aggregate and as decorative mulch, or on driveways and paths.

People lining up to receive one of 500 packs of sushi given away at the opening of the new St Pierre's Sushi and Bento Bowl in Hastings. Photo / Jack Riddell

O’Brien said the project’s geotechnical engineers had their work cut out for them to work out how to backfill the old, empty tanks, dig out forgotten power cables, and work around the old station’s gypsum trenches.

“But we’ve come through it relatively well,” he said.

“There was a bit more disposal than initially planned, but that’s the challenge of building on an old petrol station that I think started in about 1912.”

St Pierre’s Sushi marketing director Nick Katsoulis was at the opening with his brothers Perry and Costas, who also run the business.

Katsoulis remembers the site of his new restaurant being “fenced-off gravel” when he first saw it.

But now he’s proud to see the location stand tall as his company’s fourth restaurant in the region.

“The way the Hawke’s Bay market’s gone for St Pierre’s has kind of taken us by suprise,” Katsoulis said.

“We thought we’d be lucky to have one shop in Hastings and one in Napier.

“But we employ about 120 people now with all four stores combined ... so, there’s an overwhelming love of sushi amongst Kiwis.”

Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in Auckland, London, Berlin and Napier.