How to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear?  That was the ques­tion for the broth­ers who own the build­ing just off the cor­ner of Vic­to­ria and Vivian when their for­mer ten­ants’ ven­ture to open a bakery/café dis­solved.

Crafters ceilingSo in true kiwi fash­ion, they decid­ed they’d bet­ter jump in them­selves and do some­thing with it. And so Crafters & Co was born – a café/bar/off licence (an inter­est­ing move to be an off licence also).

They’re oper­at­ing under a ‘soft’ launch at the moment (ergo still final­is­ing a few bits and pieces) ahead of a for­mal launch in the next cou­ple of weeks.  But the décor looks pret­ty com­plete now (check out the swoop­ing wood­en ceil­ing — the only inher­it­ed fit out) there’s some inter­est­ing fam­i­ly heir­looms and arte­facts (includ­ing great great grand­dad on the wall), they had decaf cof­fee (many don’t in the begin­ning) and there was a decent range of morn­ing foods to go with it (a nice­ly warmed pear and gin­ger cake with a thim­ble of yoghurt).  And most impor­tant­ly (unlike many oth­ers around town) they’ve opened with their liquor licence in place.

So all in all, despite being on a busy road, and still being devel­oped, it felt rather like sit­ting in a peace­ful coun­try gar­den. Nice.

The evening nib­bles are still to be ironed out (like­ly sim­ple bar food plates and plat­ters as the main com­mer­cial kitchen has been leased to the new ven­ture next door – see below), the open­ing hours are yet to be firmed up (cur­rent­ly 8am til mid­night x 7 days) and you might soon see some real hops grow­ing by the walk-in chiller (inter­est­ing).

Crafters piesSpencer brings some cater­ing and hospo back­ground, and his broth­er oper­ates the rear of the busi­ness along­side real estate activ­i­ties. These boys are focused on local prod­ucts, and eas­i­ly spot­ted were Pan­head, Tuatara and Par­rot­dog beers, Six Bar­rel sodas, Welling­ton Choco­late Fac­to­ry bars, Kara­mu cof­fee from East­bourne (best made flat white I’ve had in ages thanks guys) and Siggy’s pies from Waikanae (and they looked mighty fine too for a future excur­sion).

There’s a rumour of some pret­ty good baps and bagels here and pos­si­bly a bacon and egg stack or two as well.

Right next door will be The Occa­sion­al Brew­er, a beer brew­ing school, also due to open over the com­ing weeks. Check out the teas­er on their face­book page (1 May post) which sug­gests you can brew, name and design a logo for your very own beer (hmmm, Heathers hooch maybe.…).

A cor­ner of the city to watch I think. I’ll be back for a pie and a pint, and good luck to the lads in the mak­ing of a silk purse.