Nick Mills: Bring back local pubs
- Publish Date
- Thu, 13 Aug 2026, 2:42pm
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EDITORIAL:
I love this story.
I read this story in the paper this morning and I really love it.
The Castlepoint Hotel is finally allowed to turn the beer taps back on after a six-month dry spell.
Its got new operators,and has been granted their liquor licences after a pretty thorough hearing.
I mean those liquor licensing hearings, when they've got a bone can go forever.
They were questioned about staffing, training, duty managers and how they would handle the occasional belligerent punter.
We always get the old belligerent punter don't we, that's a great word.
And let’s face it, is something every country pub has probably had to deal with since the first beer was poured.
And good on them. Because I love the idea of a genuine local pub.
Not a flash-Harry cocktail bar.
Not somewhere with twelve-dollar bowls of fries or olives and a drinks menu you need reading glasses and a dictionary to understand.
I mean a pub. A proper pub.
The kind where everyone knows your name.
You walk through the door and they’re already pouring your usual.
I should have got Grace to write, give us the music for cheers on this one, shouldn't I?
Where you walk through the door and they're already pouring you your usual because they know where you are.
They have Big Norm sitting in the corner.
He's been sitting in that corner since the pub opened.
You know that pub? Roaring fire in the middle of winter.
There's a Sunday roast on Sunday.
Someone's always holding court at the end of the bar, always someone telling a joke, silly old dad's joke.
You know the pub I mean.
It's like Cheers, except it's at Castle Point or the Wairarapa, not in Boston.
Where have the days have those pubs gone?
Particularly closer to the city.
You know, we have so many trendy bars and cafes and wine bars, fashionable restaurants.
We've pushed the old local completely out.
I'd love to own a country pub in a place like town.
Could you have one?
Your local.
Your local in your suburb that really is your local.
Could you do that in our suburbs and create that country atmosphere?
Nothing pretentious.
Decent food, cold beer, friendly staff and a room full of people who actually want to talk to each other.
So, have you still got a proper local?
And if somebody opened an honest-to-goodness country pub in Wellington, would you go?
Just hang out with your buddies.
A $10 beer instead of a $17 beer. A bowl of fries that cost you 6 bucks.
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