Mystery? Pah!
Sometimes, a bar is too pretentious even for me. Though by "pretentious", I don't mean what some people seem to mean by that: expensive, stylish, ambitious or glamorous. No, it's bars that make a great show of aspiring to all those qualities, and yet end up being the same-old same-old Courtenay Place tack, that really set my mandibles on edge.
Take this place, for instance. It's keen to impress punters with its "exclusivity", but if there's any door policy here it seems to be "must be wearing this season's Supré". It wants to promote itself as a burlesque-style cocktail bar, but playing endless remixes of 70s and 80s hits is not the way to do that. It pretends to embrace decadence and daring, but is deeply conventional and corporate. It wants to dazzle us with "glamour", but looks like it's aiming to attract the sort of brain-dead bleached and gelled pseudo-slebs that infest the Auckland gossip rags.
Maybe if it were honest enough to admit that it's just aiming for the bridge & tunnel crowd of glossed-up RTD-swilling teenage girlies and the thick-necked leather-jacketed middle-aged men who love them, it wouldn't grate so much. And frankly, in such a location, one shouldn't expect too much more. But by promoting itself as exclusive and sophisticated, it's opening itself up for ridicule.
Temperance??
Will wait and see before adding a *yawn* to this comment.
First bar in Wellington where I've been refused entry. Probably because my friend was giving lip to the bouncer, but still, I'm going to hold a grudge.
Not a place I'll be frequenting. Always curious how "the bridge & tunnel crowd" translates to NZ. What are the NYC analogues here?
Always curious how "the bridge & tunnel crowd" translates to NZ
I used to say the "bus and train crowd" but that doesn't seem right or fair.
This reminds me - once I was hanging out in Devonport with a friend. As we sat on a bench by the waterfront, gazing at Auckland's CBD across the harbour, my friend said, "Wow, now I know what it's like to live in New Jersey." I loled.
Could the same be said of Petone?
Hey! *I'm* a thick-necked leather-jacketed middle-aged man, and I didn't find the place that appealing.
The Barfly also forgot to mention the barstaff who didn't quite know how to make drinks that weren't of the [single alcohol]+[mixer] variety or tap beer (they had two kinds of Tui!)
Oh and Seamonkey Madness was veryclose with "Temperance" but I think we need more specifics.
Well, I didn't want to kick them while they're down: I'm not Tony Veitch (too soon, I know). But while I'm at it, saying "the cocktail list is still being printed" is not good enough for somewhere that promotes itself as a cocktail bar. My Martini was competently made in the end (although it was a disheartening experience to be offered the choice of Bombay or Beefeater, they did have Tanqueray behind the bar), but my co-fly's attempt to order a Lolita was farcical.
my co-fly's attempt to order a Lolita was farcical
Hur hur, he wasn't a thick-necked gentleman in a leather jacket was he? :)
No, he was one of the few gentlemen there dressed well enough to deserve to be called a "gentleman". Though I know what you mean: Humbert Humbert would love this place. "Light of my life, fire of my loins" indeed...
Even Humbert Humbert had standards. He would probably describe the tackiness, or absence of old Europe sophistication, of this place deliciously!! Suze
Madame Jo-Jo's or something? See all the Hummers and SUV's all logo'd up. Ridiculous.
Madame JoJo's is bang on: it's the supposedly "burlesque-style cocktail bar" at the vast and mall-like (as if that's a good thing) Temperance mega-bar complex.
It's notable that Tui is heavily involved: Burlesque style? Yeah Right.
The Temperance alco-complex has a weird feeling of a historic relic for the year 2038.
In 2038 there'll be a crazy website about the 2000s (the decade taste forgot), complete with a shrine to the crazy Temperance bar. "Check out the photos - it had all these tacky theme rooms but did weird things like play children's music from the 1980s in the 1950s room!"
It will end up seeming as entertainingly freaky as The Gobbler does now.
Haha, I don't know where this is, but I love you description! The "endless remixes of 70s and 80s hits" did it for me. Must. not. go. there, even though secretly I'd love to see it for myself.