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?