T4WA nominees: Late Night Hangout

Vot­ing in the Fourth Annu­al Wel­ling­tonista Awards is open from Decem­ber 1–15. Then come find out the res­ults at our Awards Night at Mighty Mighty on Decem­ber 17!

To vote, vis­it this page.

For drinks after work, any­where with a liquor licence will do But then there’s Drinks Late At Night (with cap­it­als), which is a whole ‘noth­er thing. Late-night ven­ues are where you go when you’re hop­ing for mis­chief and mer­ri­ment, when you want to keep drink­ing to avoid the hangover, or if you’re just hav­ing too much fun to stop. If the staff at these ven­ues could talk, what stor­ies they could tell…

The Hawthorn Lounge: It’s late in the even­ing and you’re look­ing for a cozy den where the drinks are good, the music is jazz and tables have green baize. On Tory Street there’s a black door under an awn­ing advert­ising a fam­ous cham­pagne. Those in the know saunter up and into Wel­ling­ton’s best speak­easy. Best Late Night ven­ue? The Hawthorn Lounge can only really be exper­i­enced when the sun (and the after-work­ers) has dis­ap­peared.

The Watusi: We asked for a tiki bar and we pretty much got one. The Watusi is filled late into the depths of the even­ing with the sug­ary scent of rum and the rolling waves of surf gui­tar. The only thing miss­ing is the trop­ic­al heat and sand.

Mighty Mighty: Self-con­sciously kitsch décor? Check. Bar staff with atti­tude? Check. Mind-bend­ingly weird music and arty per­form­ances? Bingo! If we did­n’t love it so much, the Mighty would be a hip­ster cliché … but we do love it, because its heart is in the right place, and because some of our wild­est, loudest, messi­est and just plain fun nights have ended up on these battered old floor­boards. 

Hooch: It has a touch of Hawthorn’s relaxed eleg­ance, but with a raunchy twist and a pir­at­ic­al gleam in its good eye. It’s always worth fight­ing the Cour­tenay hordes for its cock­tails and charm, but you should keep a spe­cial look out for its debauched “Min­sky” theme parties – named after the notori­ous New York bur­lesque club – if you like to dress well yet behave badly.

Mid­night Espresso: Loathe as some of us are to nom­in­ate an unli­censed cafe in this cat­egory, we can­’t go past the fact that Mid­night is the ulti­mate late-night hangout. The Dori­an Grey of cafes seems utterly untouched by the last two dec­ades, and keeps on serving cakes, nachos and cof­fee to new gen­er­a­tions of freaks, hip­pies, musos, drunk­ards and any­one who finds them­selves out way, way past their bed­time.