Craig & Gail's Café is the Wellington City Mission's café at Whakamaru, the Mission's community hub at 4-8 Oxford Terrace in Mount Cook, Wellington. Open Monday to Saturday, it is a spot for coffee and café food with a community purpose, run as one of the Mission's services alongside housing, community support, the Social Supermarket and the Kua Mākona Crisis Recovery Café.
As Craig & Gail's Café & Catering, the team also takes on catering for events and gatherings alongside day-to-day café service.
Every visit connects you to an organisation that has walked alongside Wellington for over 120 years, grounded in dignity, respect and the belief that everyone deserves empowerment, transformation and fullness of life.
Craig & Gail's Café & Catering is the Wellington City Mission's own café, located inside Whakamaru — the Mission's community hub at 4-8 Oxford Terrace in Mount Cook, Wellington. It is a café with a difference: rather than existing purely to turn a profit, it operates as one of the Mission's services, sitting alongside the organisation's housing work, community support services, social supermarket and crisis recovery café.
The Wellington City Mission has been walking alongside the people of Wellington for over 120 years, working to build the mana of those who are struggling. Everything the organisation does is grounded in dignity, respect and the belief that everyone deserves empowerment, transformation and fullness of life. Craig & Gail's Café carries that kaupapa into the simple, everyday setting of a neighbourhood café.
Whakamaru brings many of the Mission's services together under one roof. Alongside Craig & Gail's Café you will find Kua Mākona, the Mission's Crisis Recovery Café; the Social Supermarket, open by appointment; the Whakamaru dental service; and a range of other community support services. The café is part of what makes the hub welcoming to everyone who walks through its doors.
The numbers behind the Mission's mahi are human ones. In 2025 the Mission served hot meals to manuhiri at Whakamaru, supported people through its community services and financial mentoring, and provided shops to individuals and whānau through the Social Supermarket. Each of those numbers, the Mission stresses, represents a real person supported with care, compassion and aroha.
Craig & Gail's keeps generous café hours: 7:30am to 3pm from Monday to Friday, and 8am to 3pm on Saturdays, with Sundays closed. That makes it an easy stop for a mid-morning coffee, a lunch break in Mount Cook, or an afternoon catch-up with friends or colleagues.
The second half of the name matters too. As Craig & Gail's Café & Catering, the team offers catering alongside its day-to-day café service. If you have an event, meeting or gathering to feed, a phone call or email is the best way to talk through what the team can do.
Food sits close to the centre of the Mission's work, from hot meals served at Whakamaru to the shelves of the Social Supermarket. Craig & Gail's Café extends that into a public café setting, giving the wider Mount Cook community an easy way to experience the hub for themselves.
The Mission's reach stretches well beyond the café. It provides housing, walks alongside individuals and whānau through community support services and financial mentoring, and speaks up publicly on issues affecting the people it supports — including, recently, a submission to the Justice Select Committee on proposed move-on order laws. A café might seem like a small part of that picture, but for many Wellingtonians it is the first point of contact with the organisation's work.
For anyone who wants to go further, the Mission welcomes donors, regular givers, fundraisers and volunteers, and runs City Mission stores as well. Every form of support, the Mission says, helps ensure whānau have food on the table, a warm place of shelter, and access to the support they need to move forward with dignity.
You will find the café at Whakamaru, 4-8 Oxford Terrace, Mount Cook, Wellington 6021. Opening hours are 7:30am to 3pm, Monday to Friday, and 8am to 3pm on Saturday; the café is closed on Sundays. For enquiries, including catering, call 04 245 0900 or 0800 245 0900, or email [email protected].
If you are combining your visit with other Whakamaru services, note that the Social Supermarket operates by appointment only, from 9:30am to 4pm on weekdays and 9am to 3pm on Saturdays.
Whether you are a local, a long-time Mission supporter or simply passing through Mount Cook, Craig & Gail's Café offers the pleasures of a neighbourhood café with a genuine community purpose behind every cup.