Second Coming of the Third Place?

The essential good of hanging around in bars & restaurants

In the course of taking our little wine piggies to market, we have occasion to interact with hospitality venues and players. In a small way, we peek behind their curtain. There is an understanding between wine and hospitality that we are tied to similar fates. Dog meets dog.

Offered here as an example of the experimentation third places afford! And to show, lest I’m accused of posturing, that I have no pride to defend. From memory, Shirley Lodge circa 1987.

These meetings are what you’d expect. As diverse as people are on any given day. We have deep empathy for the rhythms of hospo. Anyone who has watched restaurant traumatainment shows, or has stopped to think for a moment, understands that restaurants are bearpits. Every bit as hierarchical as law firms. Lacking the HR refinements and asinine cultures of corporates. Living on vapour and slave to the avaricious whims of landlords, power companies, tax and regulatory impost. Every night is showtime. It’s tough. Like wine, I cannot imagine surviving in hospo unless fueled by deep down passion and grit. When we appear at the restaurant to talk wine, we’re very sensitive to the situation and do our utmost to … not intrude. Sometimes there’s a warm curious welcome. And we engage, human to human.

Without dwelling on it, sometimes we are met with short shrift. And a sense that maybe you’ve been mistaken for a tax collector or street walker. Fair enough. We all have bad days. And some dogs just don’t like other dogs. I get that too. But it does lead one to think… hospitality. Manaakitanga. Whanaungatanga. Whether the curtain is up or down. And then, because I spent a lot of time in the tractor last week, this led to thoughts on the enduring role the ‘third place’ plays in our lives, beyond the onboarding of calories and rituals of settling up. This has led to a bottom drawer being opened. Places in my own punter history that have left lasting impressions. The deep mark that the third place can make on one’s life. So, in particular order, from puppy dog awe and ignorance to grey-specked-muzzle experience, these are some of the formative third places across my arc:

Tea Rooms. Some of my earliest memories, period. Bright orange naugahyde vinyl booths and linoleum tables with metal banding and scalding metal teapots. Glass sugar pourers and brown plastic stacker trays sliding along metal rails past the cabinets towards the cashier. Steaming percolators, puffed up lamingtons. Eclairs and custard squares. Sausage rolls and asparagus rolls. And, in Waimate or Oamaru, cheese rolls. This could be Ballantynes, Cashel Street, Timaru or anywhere. The smells. Coffee. Whatever the makeup was that lathered grandmotherly faces, daubed from bakelite ‘compacts’. This is where saliva-wetted handkerchiefs were deployed in shame-avoidance or pride. Both I suppose. Everyone was on display. Christchurch was an uptight place.

Drexels. A breakfast restaurant that didn’t entail fried eggs on fried chips, sausages and ham steaks served on a heavy ‘liver’ plate. Exotica. Until then unheard of in my orbit. You could have bagels. With salmon! And quark! Eggs with hollandaise! On the way out to or back from an early morning Sumner surf/swim. Drexels was a NYC-styled Jewish deli affair. Never gave that a thought. It was ravenously good and a place to gather without the stress of nightlife. The coffee a happier accord between the stewed percolator tearooms and the gritty sludge at Mykonos on Lichfield Street. Incidentally, aged between 8-12 years, a cycle gang of us rode in on Tomahawks, Choppers and Monarchs to play an arcade game in the ground floor of a strip club on Lichfield Street. It was very cool. You looked through a periscope, searching the horizon for ships, scanning left and right, judging closing vectors, before launching one’s torpedo. I had no idea of any implication beyond playing the sub game and got a stern rebuke and made to vow and promise…

Tragatti’s Trattoria - also Lichfield Street. Fifteen going on 16, innocent as a lamb. Descending stairs into a non-salacious speakeasy kind of place. Liz Braggins and Graham Wardrop, with the Empressorial Janice Gray! Live music. Folk Jazz, I supposed. Over dinner and beyond. And parmesan. A first encounter. The smell of grated mounds of it warming on tables to be heaped on handmade creamy fettucine. Santa Maria! Despite being a complete rube and undoubtedly interrupting the vibe, we were never made to feel unwelcome or out of place. No-one has needed to make me feel this way. Anywhere. Ever!

The Chancery. Definitely underage. Upstairs with Dwayne Franks on piano. And if you wanted to stay on past 10pm, you needed to purchase and consume a full carvery meal of roast beef and potatoes. Bouncers made sure you did. Then, the covers band struck up and dancing ensued. Anywhere you went in ChCh, covers bands set fire to dancefloors. Sing along Irish and folk at Warners Hotel. Amez Amez with Boh Runga at The Occidental. The Palladium’s Big Game Hunters. Outta mind, outta sight….

Later at lower latitudes, Hamilton in the late 1980s. Kaffe Fassett was knitting up a many-coloured Josephian super el nino storm and the Moosewood and Enchanted Broccoli Forest Cookbooks swept our kitchen floors. The Wholefood Kitchen, I think it was? on Grey Street, Hamilton. Saturday night bustle. Again, fettucine with parmesan. But Carbonara. With fresh egg adorned.

Lower still, Rick’s Cafe Americane - off Parnell, down by the tracks. Saturday afternoon Auckland cheerleaders, rugby players, DJs, TV people and car dealers. Jugs of margerita and buckets of cerveza. Killarney Street Bar & Brasserie, the super friendly Concierge directing parking. Surf ‘n turf. Flaming swordfish and hapuka steaks and amblings down Takapuna beach before the lights of the city driving home.

DKD (Decadence Kills Depression) upstairs in the late night nethers of the Civic. Harold from the Hallelujah Picassos presided here. Striding and glowering. As did mudcake and nursed studential black coffees.

To start the day, Atomic Cafe on Ponsonby Road. Chris Priestly, poached eggs and newspapers before strolling to uni. The life! To end the day, Guadalupe upstairs on K Rd. A distinct Catholic Santoria aesthetic; melted wax, pierced Christs and gilt Madonnas, with chorizo and gnocchi. Sangria. Urbi et Orbi cafe and Saigon Vietnamese on K Rd. Musical Knives with the living Madonna’s personal chef whipping up vegetarian chicanery. Little Italy on Victoria Street. The Lebanese family of a friend serving Italian and 1.5l bottles of ropey Valpolicella.

Vivace on Vulcan Lane in the Ennor Glaister building. Barry Coleman, Deborah Hill Cone and NBR’ers in session. Risotto with prosciutto, peas, lemon and pinenuts. Heady. De Bretts and the House Bar (Zane Lowe and Freebase next door!). The boho charm and excellent kitchen at fair Verona, version 1.0, on K Rd.

To ruin the next day, one or all of the troika of Akld acronyms: VBG, where money spoke in unhushed tones and a Ferret may well be lurking. Visitors from Hawkes Bay definitely in short supply here. SPQR - OMG, and PRB for the long, long lunch - TV starlets and “Hey Al, Paul Holmes has been in there a long time”.

In service of the good and the great, an attempt to deliver the US Under Secretary of Commerce and his wife to dine at the French Cafe. They didn’t like the look of Upper Symonds Street, or me! and asked to be taken back to the hotel. The Arch Bishop of Swaziland, Percy Mongmezulu and entourage, had no qualms about the cheerful aesthetic of the Indian restaurant on the corner of Great South and Broadway. Or me. Inviting me to dine with them. Great fun.

Southward and Kopi Malaysian on Willis Street. Laksa and the great, good and grey of Wellington. Hummingbird Saturday night post sailing or whenever the right clients were in town. Chow / Motel - prawn and coriander dumplings then via the golden door to gold flaked-martinis and oblivion. Matterhorn - raucousness and deliciousness.

Once more into the Glossious world of Akld. HQ for the famous hashbrowns and boatshoes. Tabou in Kingsland for Kir Royales. O’ Sarracino next to Tongues funeral directors on Symonds Street, for whatever the FOH told you you should eat and drink. You could make your own selections but would be told if you’d got it wrong. Excellent! Warrick Brown’s Meccano in Mechanics Bay. Michael Meredith’s Meredith’s, when flush, for dessert in a terracotta plant pot. Tanuki’s Cave and Ken Yakitori. Michael and Annette Dearth’s Grove in St Pat’s Square. Galbraiths for some English Sunday pubbery. Picking up chips from the floor, going for fresh colouring-in sheets and chasing the girls around the room.

It is trite to observe that much has changed in hospitality, as elsewhere. It had better have! And perilous to draw heavy conclusions. Certainly it brings home how, in the peak pre-career years, my social repertoire was quite outrageous. Be assured, I worked hard for my money across those bon vivant school/uni and transition years. And, we didn’t have anything like the cost of living imbalances that we do now. Going out wasn’t indulgence. It was what people did. It was how socialising was done. Venues were the crucial third place that enabled this, beyond office drinks, house parties, or the campus bar.

The Third Place, let’s define as that place beyond home and work where genuine social communion happens. Unregimented and requiring your positive engagement. Not scripted like a seminar, show or church service where you may slink back and passively absorb it, or not. Third places are not partisan or privileged like a private members club. They are reasonably status-neutral locales for mixing and gathering, for gettings together outside of tribal affiliations whatever these may be. Being around others — a clearing in the enclosing thickets of our profession or firm. Where we decompress, offload, defrag, listen to and tell stories. Laugh. Ease into a new perspective and gain insight into someone else’s life. Scrolling doesn’t do this. Being herded into echo chambers doesn’t do this. Rather, the opposite.

And I do sometimes wonder whether we’ve remembered how fun it is to be with people, our own or others. Or to have people be with us. It seems to me that the clearing the third place is meant to provide, has been colonised and stripped by performance, status accumulation and commercial pressure.

I don’t remember targeting venues because they had starlit chefs (not even the Madonna guy) or that whoever reviewer gushed about it. Or that in any way we were accumulating merit points for workday conversations or instagram feeds or wherever we sought to peacock ourselves. The object was good food and company, whether it was Mexican Cafe or Armadillos nachos or Il Casino or Mondo Cucina risotto.

Of course, the third place largely reflects who we are. Venues therefore perform a sympathetic, mirroring role in allowing community and relationships to occur. Accordingly, there’s a distinct curated performative signalling required of and therefore assumed by venues. Because that’s what we demand of them. When they do achieve this alchemical fusion, it may result in a phalanx of reef fish circling, with writers and editors shining adoring spotlights on “It” chefs and venues - but pinch your nose and reflect on the column inches disgorged on the neo-Ramsayian bully, sex pest chef at Amisfield. Until the velvet curtains were wrenched open to reveal something pungent but not in a good way like those early parmesans. The hype did not convey the truth. We would we have voted with our posts, likes or wallets if we’d known it. Correct?

I realise this is treacherous territory for a wine brand but we want to be on the right side. I like thinking we all do. And I think many of us sense that we’re dangerously close to losing something important in the social regeneration that our third places, our bars, cafes, restaurants and venues have always provided us.

A quote from Canadian wine chap Pierre Ferland, resonates:

We have more information on how to survive than any generation in history but we are struggling with the basic question of how to live.”

You maybe detect that venue operators sense this too? Some give the impression of casting off, or rejecting altogether, the transactional straightjackets of performative, status orientation. All while balancing the realities of the commercial pressures that threaten to kill their hospitality buzz and very viability; understandably, hollowing out and stretching their welcome. Which might even contribute to showing meagre courtesy to weary, dusty-sandalled wine grower/maker pilgrims alighting at their doors. Everywhere there is pressure just now. We know.

I’ve wondered if ‘Dive bars’, are perhaps expressions of the yearning some operators have to connect to the fundamentals of hospitality in their curation of third places? Dive bars, one reads, having not traversed the equator for too many years, are stripped back presentations of drinks and food. Unpretentious and designed to put people at ease. To stay and do as they will. Whether consciously taking up this leaf or not, there are examples here of village bar restaurants determinedly local and welcoming. Oozing mangakitanga and serving quality and opportunities to have fun seemingly devoid of posturing and artifice. Places that seem to know their community. That support local suppliers and go out of their way to act with bcorp integrity. You sense they are not operating beyond any pretentions other than creating excellent environments to celebrate our food and drinks but more importantly, places like Little Jimmy’s or Cuba Street Tavern, seem intent on making their places our places.

There will be others, of course. But what would I know? I don’t get out like I once did. It’s your turn. Make a booking.

Brent. Sept 2026