What makes a cafe/bar/restaurant a place to you want to return to over and over again? Sim­ple. It is peo­ple, it is peo­ple, it is peo­ple. And these are some of the finest peo­ple in town.

Customs Brew Bar

Cus­toms’ large range of sin­gle-ori­gin cof­fees and exot­ic ways of brew­ing cof­fee may seem a lit­tle daunt­ing for the aver­age espres­so drinker, but the staff will take their time to explain this bold new world of cof­fee. Not only that, the cof­fee is expert­ly brewed and pre­sent­ed with care.

Cus­toms Brew Bar: 39 Ghuznee Street

The owners of the caravan on Ghuznee Street

The CaravanThe car­a­van mys­te­ri­ous­ly showed up next to the Princess’s Bed­room car­a­van in the emp­ty yard on Ghuznee Street. It’s staffed by a real­ly love­ly cou­ple who pre­pare their range of take­away noms with care and love.

The Car­a­van: 44 Ghuznee St

Jonny at Cuckoo

Oh Mr McKen­zie, we’d fol­low you to the edge of the uni­verse — or at least to Lambton Quar­ter (and prob­a­bly to Mira­mar now too)! Jon­ny estab­lish­es fan­tas­tic bars, and then makes sure they stay full by pro­vid­ing that extra lev­el of atten­tion. He knows cus­tomers’ names and how they have their mar­ti­nis, and is always ready to offer sug­ges­tions about what to try next.

Cuck­oo Cock­tail Empo­ri­um: Kumu­to­to Plaza

The boys of Monterey

Mon­terey in New­town is all kinds of won­der­ful (their inte­ri­ors fea­tured in Urbis mag­a­zine dontcha know) but their ser­vice is tru­ly pitch per­fect. You know when some­one is tru­ly present and atten­tive but not all up your grill try­ing to daz­zle you with their per­son­al­i­ty? Ever calm, sweet and thought­ful the boys at Mon­terey give you the space to unwind, doo­dle on the table or get absorbed in a game of scrab­ble but if you need guid­ance choos­ing a drink or nav­i­gat­ing the new menu they will be there for you. And like a lov­ing par­ent, they’ll even hold onto all your works of art and hang them on the refridger­a­tor inter­net.

Mon­terey New­town: 4 Rin­toul St, New­town

The crew at Hashigo Zake

Image by Jed Soane

When there’s eleven­ty hun­dred beers on offer, you’re going to need some guid­ance. Just as well then, that the fine peo­ple at Hashigo, led by the mighty Dominic, are well hap­py to let you sam­ple what’s on tap before you buy. They offer dis­counts to SOBA mem­bers and occa­sion­al­ly geeks — in fact, they’re so geek-friend­ly that if you want the air con­di­tion­er turned up, you can just tweet them and ask instead of fight­ing your way to the counter when it’s busy!

Hashigo Zake: 25 Tarana­ki St