2AWA: Best Late-Night Venue nominations

Here are the nom­i­nees for the Best Late-Night Venue cat­e­go­ry for the 2nd Annu­al Welling­ton­ista Awards (2AWA).

When even Win­ston Peters has gone to bed, the best bar to go to is:

Sure, town is bang­ing and hum­ming around mid­night. But what if the bar you’re in starts clos­ing and you’re not ready to go home yet? Where do you head to then?

(nom­i­nees after the jump)

A. Hawthorn Lounge

The Hawthorn Lounge reminds us of a very sophis­ti­cat­ed lounge, so it’s the equiv­a­lent of invit­ing some­one home for a night­cap — which means you can cut straight to the sex­ing when you do actu­al­ly get home. The smooth, unob­tru­sive ser­vice and the cosy fire (with marsh­mal­lows in win­ter!) will def­i­nite­ly encour­age snug­gling, and the cock­tails are strong enough to help you make your deci­sion on where to sleep that much eas­i­er…

B. Sandwiches

Sand­wich­es serves many pur­pos­es, from a qui­et spot for an ear­ly evening drink, to a tasty restau­rant to a full-on venue that places host to inter­na­tion­al DJs. It’s the lat­ter that makes Sand­wich­es such a late night spot — don’t be sur­prised to see peo­ple stum­bling out at 7am, rub­bing their eyes bleer­i­ly in the sun­light.

C. San Francisco Bathhouse

Gigs at San Fran­cis­co sel­dom start before 10pm, so with a cou­ple of sup­port bands, it’s rare for a show to be fin­ished before 1am. Just as well that they’re licensed until some­time around 7am then, because the Welling­ton­ista has seen a cou­ple of sun­ris­es from a couch on their bal­cony. They don’t always choose to stay open that late, but when they do, good times and debauch­ery with an alt-indie audi­ence are there for the tak­ing. SFBH is also awe­some at obtain­ing spe­cial licens­es so they can be open on Good Fri­day, Anzac and Christ­mas Day, and it’s very amus­ing to see the crowds of peo­ple from all over town show up des­per­ate for anoth­er drink.

WINNER!!!
D. Mighty Mighty

Mighty Mighty does­n’t real­ly start going until mid­night, and then it’s hard to know when it stops. What’s fan­tas­tic about the Mighty is its diverse clientèle (from hip kids to the Bridge and Tun­nel crowd — although many would argue there’s not very much dif­fer­ence there), and the tunes that get spun cov­er all eclec­tic bases. Your feet will hate you in the morn­ing, but you just might have the time of your life danc­ing away the whole night under the mir­ror­ball.

E. Havana

Havana and its many dif­fer­ent small spaces is full of dark cor­ners, and that’s real­ly what you need in a late-night venue, isn’t it? Its semi-secret loca­tion (well, it’s not on Courte­nay Place) means that it’s most­ly not pop­u­lat­ed with wankers, and when the DJ’s spin­ning funk you can dance dance dance. Sev­er­al Welling­ton­istas nom­i­nate this as the bar most like­ly to fea­ture peo­ple who will try to pick you up in the wee hours of the morn­ing, so if that’s the way you get your self esteem boost, we’re not going to judge you. In fact, we might just be at the bar next to you, order­ing anoth­er caipir­in­hia and giv­ing you a saucy wink.

For a handy map of where to find these venues, use the “latenight” tag on Zoomin. Go try ’em all out before vot­ing opens on Novem­ber 19.