Eat Lessbanese
We've mentioned Habebie Restaurant before (well, actually I can't find a link, so maybe we didn't actually) but we have exciting news - it's BYO now (and may have been for a while now), but more importantly, from Monday-Thursday, all mains (except seafood) are $17. And since prices for mains usually go from $22-28, and that includes meze starter platters, we're telling you to get your asses down there for some awesome big piles of meat. But take a cardie - it's not the warmest place ever.
I wouldn't be hugely surprised, it's always been pretty much empty every time I've been in there. They were far too expensive to start with, before they became BYO, so maybe it's too little too late? Plus I think that whole block is kind of doomed.
We had a very nice meal there a few months ago.
I agree, that block has the stench of failure about it. But also, their menu, if you read it in the window, didn't look much different to what you could get from a kebab house, even though in fact the presentation/quality is far superior. I imagine a lot of people have skimmed the menu as they walk past and thought "I'm not paying that much for a kebab!"
The trouble with that particular bit of street frontage is that it actually has bugger-all foot traffic. There's not a lot of potential for passing trade there. I notice that the shop next door has the kind of huge sale that usually presages closing down.
The Oaks is sad. I've seen photos of it in the early '80s when it was all light and white and filled with romantic vines and so much promise.
But it virtually ignored its Te Aro/Pigeon Park and Manners and Dixon Street frontages and created a battle with Cuba Mall - "I'll see your pedestrian mall and raise you a mini suburban mall in the city." Cuba Street won, the Oaks lost, Cuba Street lost.
I feel like the building still has some potential. While it is scruffy and rundown (blame the owner, not the architect), it's got that cool '80s steel and glass style - the Nelson Provincial Museum was originally a pub in that style which was nicely transformed into the new museum.
I'd like to see something happen with that building - if not the whole space - though it could be hard in an area that prides itself on being all about cool old buildings.
You may or may not be surprised to find that there are some heritage architects who want to get the building (Warren & Mahoney, 1981) listed.
Wasn't it part of the arcade-mania that seized the NZ property developer in the 80s?
Is there an arcade left in Welly that actually has life in it? I can only think of the Kings Arcade on Willis/Manners, and that's only because it's an effective short-cut through the corner.
"that cool '80s steel and glass style"
No doubt when I'm 70 I'll be nostalgic for their charming quaintness, but it seems to me that the vast majority of those 80s steel and glass buildings were put together on the cheap and look like pus as natural aging sets in. Their seals are leaking, and their sharp corners are full of grime.
As for something happening with that building, to me the problem is that two sides of it (Dixon and Aro park) have no reason for people to walk down them. Unless the toilet block goes, or the footpath is widened on that side of Dixon, or the bus stop moves towards Taranaki, there will never be enough people for any business that relies on passing trade.
Is there an arcade left in Welly that actually has life in it?
The Harbour City Centre, Capital on the Quay, Lambton Square, the Grand Arcade and Cable Car Lane are still rocking along quite happily AFAIK
I'm intrigued by all the mini-mally buildings down Lambton Quay. Is it a quirk of a planning law trying to avoid a canyon of glass by requiring anything above two stories to be set back? Some sort of earthquake regulation?
Most attempts at such main street malls in Auckland have failed, but do they somehow work on Lambton Quay?
Yeah, I guess I wasn't thinking too hard.
The ones on Lambton Quay generally have a well-trafficked route up to the Terrace via lifts at the rear.
IMO you could quite happily flatten the Oaks, as well as the section further west in the quadrant 'tween Dixon and Victoria Streets and Lower Cuba and Manners Malls, and infill buildings with about 6 stories as well as much much better active edges -- butting right up to the KPMG (or whatever it is) bldg. And while you're at it, nuke the old Deka building on the south side of Dixon St. The whole area is an ugly waste of space.
I always thought the Oaks was supposed to be a very short term building (like 5 years), before it was to be redeveloped. Like Duke's Arcade on Perrott's corner.
Give it another couple of decades and the Oaks and the one where Glassons is will start to have serious heritage charm.
But that old Deka building should go. Now.
(I saw someone's recycling out on Cuba Street in a Deka bag on Tuesday - is this a result of plastic bags becoming scarcer? Is there a market for vintage plastic bags?
I heard that Habiebie is closing soon. Lack of clientele. But that was from a friend of a friends friend.