TAWA5 Most Needed

We love this town. But, and we’d nev­er admit this to any­one not-from-here, there are a few things that we could do with in Welling­ton. Here’s some of them:

More rooftop bars

Let’s face it — the main drags are quite crowd­ed now. We like bars that seem like they’re out of the way, but which are real­ly easy to get it, and this means that we’re look­ing up at real estate — way up. Why can’t we get some sun­shine, some fresh air and a new per­spec­tive on every­thing? Sure­ly there are more rooftops in Welling­ton suit­able for a bar than just the Wine Loft? Get your act togeth­er, hos­pi­tal­i­ty own­ers, and we will pledge our sup­port.

Real time bus information

“Bet­ter pub­lic trans­port” is a com­mon reoc­cur­ing wish here at the Welling­ton­ista, so we decid­ed to go for some­thing more tan­gi­ble, some­thing that even Auck­land has man­aged — real-time updates of when bus­es will arrive at each stop. Metlink keep say­ing it’s going to hap­pen, but anoth­er year has passed and still no real-time bus info. And, no, tweet­ing about a can­celled bus after the fact is not a good sub­sti­tute, Metlink!

A place to get donuts

Feck the cup­cake, it’s so over. And the mac­aron is way too tiny to sat­is­fy our sweet tooth. In this cof­fee town, we don’t under­stand why there are no donut shops. We’d even set­tle for a chain like Dunkin or Krispy, although we’re real­ly yearn­ing for some­thing more alter­na­tive and slighty crazy, like Gor­dough’s Big Fat in Austin.

Some decent mac’n cheese in town

Mon­terey has a good one, but only on their win­ter menu, Sweet Moth­er’s Kitchen has a fan­cy ver­sion with truf­fle oil — although purists who like their mac’n cheese baked will be sore­ly dis­ap­point­ed with it, and New World has the greasy heat­lamp vari­ety. But won’t some cafe do a good hearty mac­a­roni and cheese for those of us who are jonesing for the good stuff?

Public space to replace Manners Mall

Man­ners Mall has turned back into Man­ners Street, and with it went a sig­nif­i­cant down­town pub­lic space. Coun­cil say Low­er Cuba will be turned into a mixed-use street, but it’s cur­rent­ly threat­en­ing to turn into a glo­ri­fied car park street like Blair and Allen. The space lost to Man­ners Mall needs to be replaced, else where will we spend our week­ends spit­ting and smok­ing?