Comings and Goings

The start of each year often sees a shake-up of the bar and res­taur­ant scene, and with the Cur­rent Eco­nom­ic Cli­mate^TM one might expect a few more clos­ures than usu­al. Let’s not dwell on such mor­bid spec­u­la­tion, and look at a few clos­ings and open­ings that we do know about.

While dis­cuss­ing the demise of Tem­per­ance (which did­n’t reopen this week­end, des­pite DB’s threats assur­ances), Blair men­tioned that the Cour­tenay Arms had been replaced by some­thing called “The Kiwi Pub”. It does­n’t look quite as dire as I had feared, and its light, airy feel is more beach café than six-o’c­lock swill. It’s still nos­tal­gia-by-num­bers, though, pre­sum­ably aimed at the back­pack­er mar­ket, and des­pite the odd decent beer on the list, the Soci­ety Of Beer Advoc­ates is not impressed.

Across the road, New Orleans will open its new Allen St loc­a­tion in a a couple of weeks, in the space long left vacant by the unla­men­ted Play. I hope it lasts longer than its cursed Lamb­ton Quay incarn­a­tion, and while it’s pre­sum­ably aim­ing at a dif­fer­ent demo­graph­ic, its Cajun cuisine will have stiff com­pet­i­tion from Sweet Mother­’s Kit­chen around the corner.

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Back in Blair St, Boulot was once a a firm Wel­ling­tonista favour­ite, but it has finally closed after months of feel­ing like a shad­ow of its glam­or­ous former self. It’s appar­ently going to reopen as an Itali­an res­taur­ant, though under dif­fer­ent man­age­ment.

While we were reluct­ant to let you in on this, we have to tell you the shock­ing news: there is a Really Good Bar in Cour­tenay Place! As the Fly intim­ated many months ago, the former Mer­cury Lounge was taken over by the McK­en­zie broth­ers and giv­en the trans­ition­al name 46c, but it was only just before Christ­mas that the ven­ue was prop­erly trans­formed and re-opened as Hooch. It’s a much more sump­tu­ous space with the false ceil­ing ripped out and antique-style couches installed, and the slight Bur­lesque theme was brought out on New Year’s Eve when the bar­tenders looked gor­geous in fish­nets and frilly skirts. And that was just Jonny!

On a slightly dif­fer­ent note, most likely an out-of-tune one, Club K karaoke bar closed down at the end of 2008. The note on the win­dow states that prizes on their clos­ing nights included “bar tabs for the open­ing of our new bar party”: can any reg­u­lars of Club K con­firm wheth­er it’s going to be in the former Oaks loc­a­tion or some­where else? It’s okay, you can com­ment anonym­ously: we under­stand.

Not much is chan­ging in the Cuba Quarter, apart from the gut­ting of the former takeaway under SFBH (which is cur­rently emit­ting a miasma to rival The Great Stink of 1858) to make way for a new café of unknown qual­it­ies. There is one new place right at the top of Cuba St, though it pre­sum­ably won’t be around for long: Kreuzberg Sum­mer Café. Based upon the (per­haps overam­bi­tious but nev­er­the­less wel­come) com­par­is­on of Cuba St to the eponym­ous immigrant/bohemian quarter of Ber­lin, it’s noth­ing more than a cara­van with a few tables and pot plants, but it should be a pleas­ant enough loc­a­tion when (and if) we get a sum­mer. And per­haps it might not be lim­ited to one sea­son: there are rumours of a liquor license, and even hot pools!

One bar that does seem to have dis­ap­peared without a planned replace­ment is MVP in Dix­on St. The old Chevy’s was a bit of an insti­tu­tion, though not always for the best reas­ons, but noth­ing seems to have got it right in this loc­a­tion since then, and the site is cur­rently for lease. Bring back the neon cow­boy!

On a hap­pi­er note, the Copita site in Feath­er­ston St has “Leased” signs in its win­dows and oth­er sig­nals that a replace­ment is on the way. Last year’s clos­ure of the upmar­ket Span­ish-influ­enced res­taur­ant caused a bit of a media flurry and early spec­u­la­tion of a hos­pit­al­ity down­turn, so it’s good to see some­thing new on the hori­zon. Of course, it could just be taken over by an estate agent’s office or a Star­bucks, but here’s hop­ing that some­thing comes along that does the space some justice. [Update: accord­ing to Roar­prawn, Dermot Murphy of Black Harp and D4 fame has taken it over, and it will become “Koi”, “a fusion of Japan­ese and Kiwi kai”. Could be inter­est­ing.]