January 24, 2010
A teatowel coffee guide to Wellington
NZ History have recently added an amazing tea towel, thought to be from the mid-1960s, listing the coffee houses of Wellington.
It’s very cool to see such a list of classy joints that our forefathers and foremothers ran, making Wellington such a good coffee town.
Only a couple of these places are still in existence today (and the Matterhorn’s specialty is no longer "Continental cakes"). I wonder what businesses can now be found in these locations.
(And it’s interesting that in the days before the Beehive and the Fern Ball, the icon of Wellington was, er, the National War Memorial, and National Museum and Gallery.)
Who remembers the Chez Paree,think thats how you spell it.The Chez was in majoribanks st,might have been in the Embassy theatre bldg.Very popular resident folk singers entertaining, also popular music.Rremember steve allen was popular.
Greetings
I remember the Chez Paree and how much I enjoyed the venue, artists, music and ambieance of the place as a teenager.
I would like to make contact if poss. with an artist names Ian …? He played guitar and sang. Had curly light brown hair and we were friends. We lost touch somewhere along the way as you do and now I don’t even have any letters left and after so many years I have forgotten his last name. He also was a airport traffic controller and did meteorology in Antartica I believe. I know this is a stab in dark, however, if you know of anyone that could help me find him or send me a contact I will persevere. Thankyou
Am so glad I found some tales of the Chez Paree. It was a great place and sits in the memories of many people fondly. Zuzula Anghel
In the days when gay meant something completely different than is does now, as teenagers in the early 1960s we could often be seen in the tete, making a coffee last ages, we used to think we were so sophisticated ,they used to do a wicked toasted ham sandwich, in those days you had to be 21 to get in a bar. I recall one other from that time, The Rendevous which was in Lambton Quay, which was upstairs over a shop. Happy days.