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(which did­n’t reopen this week­end, despite DB’s threats assur­ances), Blair men­tioned that the Courte­nay Arms had been replaced by some­thing called “The Kiwi Pub”.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.]