The Oaks com­plex some­times seems like a hos­pi­tal­i­ty Bermu­da Tri­an­gle: fast-food joints and dodgy con­ve­nience stores jos­tle with bars of almost unre­lent­ing crap­ness. But some­thing’s about to land that looks much more promis­ing: Mem­phis Belle Cof­fee House.

Memphis Belle Coffee Shop - Dixon St

With a barista who just came sec­ond in the region­al champs, a seri­ous-look­ing range of Flight beans from their Napi­er home base and glimpses of an inte­ri­or that looks vast­ly more sophis­ti­cat­ed than its pre­de­ces­sor (not that that’s say­ing much), Mem­phis Belle might just put the Oaks curse behind it. It should be open­ing this week, and def­i­nite­ly seems worth check­ing out.

On the oth­er hand, it looks like it might be lights out for a bar that was nev­er exact­ly this fly­’s favourite place: Elec­tric Avenue. There was a skip out­side this week­end, grad­u­al­ly fill­ing with neon-paint­ed MDF as the gaudy inte­ri­ors were ripped out. It’s quite pos­si­ble that it’s just a par­tic­u­lar­ly vio­lent ren­o­va­tion, but it all seems rather sud­den, and their Face­book group has been silent for a month. Is there any­one out there who will admit to being a reg­u­lar and can con­firm or refute its demise? And what are the chances of get­ting a decent bar to replace it? Giv­en the loca­tion in Munter Cen­tral, I guess the most we could hope for is a bar that can at least spell its street address on its web­site.