New Zealanders have an abundance of bars and pubs to choose from for late-night socialising, but there aren't many alternatives that don’t involve alcohol. With police trying to crack down on our drinking culture, one solution might be the resurrection of late-night coffee lounges.
Unlike cafes as we know them today, coffee lounges in the 1950s and 60s were a popular place to socialise at night.
Karangahape Road historian Edward Bennett says during the long hours that coffee lounges were open - some 8am until 5am - a duel personality was at play.
“There was a naughtiness to coffee bars after hours. During the day they were perfectly respectable venues for housewives who went shopping. Then during the night it would have a total change in personality.”
He says they were the beating heart of New Zealand’s social scene, playing host to blossoming romances, philosophical discussions crafted by university students and musical performances. The rooms were dimly lit by candles stuck in Chianti bottles and thick with cigarette smoke. European-style furniture was dotted around and paintings by local artists hung on the wall. Some coffee lounges had the ceiling painted black and lowered by grids of fishing nets.
Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries. 1269-A997-3. Photographer: John Rykenberg
Magazines and newspapers were read over a cup of coffee - either instant or Cona - and a few Dutch immigrants had brought over their Italian espresso machines. Coffee houses were named after exotic European places or artists, such as Montmartre or Picasso. They were modelled on London’s Soho espresso bars, where Cliff Richard, Tommy Steele and many other rock’n’roll stars were discovered.
“A number of the workers were going to and from California as the timber and gold moved in the nineteenth century, so there were quite a number of men who had been in San Fransico, who probably picked up the coffee habit there,” says Mr Bennett.
The success of coffee lounges rode on the backs of a new category of society, ‘teenagers’, who had spending money of their own in an economically prosperous environment, and who yearned to carve their own cultural and physical spaces.
The venues were popular among those on the cultural fringe, such as jazz and folk musicians, poets, writers and academics.
“The magic of the coffee houses was because it was a novelty. Coffee was a novelty, night-time was a novelty and drinking alcohol finished at 6 o’clock. Television was a minor, minor thing until people got used to it - and then people just stayed home,” says retired television broadcaster Max Cryer.
Since then cafés have evolved into daytime businesses extremely popular throughout the country. Outside of restaurants, Kiwis’ night-time social options are predominantly bars, pubs and nightclubs – all involving alcohol.
Grady Elliott owns Family Bar on Karangahape Road and opened TAP Bar - New Zealand’s first dry bar, which lasted just five weeks.
He says the reason for TAP Bar’s failure, along with bad timing and location, was simply that people just wanted booze.
For late-night coffee lounges to work as a popular alternative, he says “it will be about education. It won’t kick in straight away, it will kick in six months to a year. It’s whether the business can sustain that – and will have to have trade during the day.”
Mr Elliott foresees a fall in problem drinking after the recent tightening of the drink-driving limit. He also predicts that limit will soon drop to zero tolerance.
“It’s 3am and you’re out and about having a good time. You don’t want to go home. So what do you do? The only place you’re gonna go is an unlicensed place, or it’s home.
“If the [police] get their way, that’s where these cafés can work really well and unlicenesd bars will work really well when it all pushes in,” he says.
Red Frogs is a support network for university students at events involving alcohol. Co-ordinator Oliver Nelson says coffee lounges can provide a successful alternative to bars if executed well.
"If you're going to have place like a coffee bar it's about having ones that are excellent. They can't be done second-rate, they've got to have something different about them, and then it's got to be a place where you know the guys working behind the coffee machine and you feel like it's a space you can come into and feel like you know it," he says.
Mr Elliott worries that violence and crime may spill onto the streets instead of being in the controlled environment of a bar if closing hours are pushed earlier, but Senior Sergeant Steve Sargent from the police’s Alcohol Harm Prevention Unit disputes that.
“There is proven research to show that the earlier you close the less likely there is to be alcohol-related harm. What we’ve found… [is that] when the bars closed at 4am people go home,” he says.
He says police encourage alternative places for young people to gather away from alcohol, but thinks cafés and restaurants wouldn’t open during nightclub hours because “that’s not the usual time that people go out to get something to eat”.
Mr Nelson says the key to success is providing a space that encourages engagement and community.
"With young people it's all got to be built over time and reputation. People will come check out a new bar or a café, but they will come back for the quality of it, like is it actually excellent? But then [people will] also come back for the feeling of community and feeling like it's mine, like [they] belong," he says.
Mr Elliott believes what it comes down to is shifting culture, and it takes about a year to change behaviour.
“Changes like this take a long time and we weren’t prepared to wait. You need a core group to get it going and then it’s just constant education. It’s building that brand."
‘We don’t want to be a nana city where lights are off at three in the morning …you can’t shut the city down.”
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