University of Otago students have enjoyed some legendary Dunedin pubs over the years but the classic haunts are long gone and well missed. Photo / File
The heyday of the Dunedin student bar is over. Herald journalist Ben Tomsett spoke to former Otago rugby stars Marc Ellis and Josh Kronfeld about legendary Scarfie haunts The Cook, Gardies and The Bowler, and looks back at a boozy time gone by.
About two decades ago, a pub could be found only a stone’s throw away from almost any flat in Dunedin’s student quarter.
These days, not one of those famed hostelries remains.
The Cook, The Outback, The Bowler, Two Bears, KC’s, The Vatican, Gardies, and Starters Bar all toppled like dominos in a cascade effect that has its roots in 1999, when New Zealand changed its liquor laws.
Beer sales were allowed in supermarkets, and the drinking age was reduced from 20 to 18.
Poor management and bottled alcohol becoming a dime-a-dozen commodity resulted in a radical culture shift in North Dunedin.
On the whole, the market became overly saturated with cheap bottled beer and RTDs which resulted in pub drinking becoming out-priced for many students.
The drinking culture moved from the pubs and into the flats, where unsupervised and out-of-control parties took hold. Slowly but surely, the pubs disappeared.
Former All Blacks and Otago rugby stars of the 1990s Josh Kronfeld and Marc Ellis were there during the peak of those halcyon student pubs - and remember them fondly.
“The beauty of the pub scene was that you met people outside your speciality. If I was doing marketing, I’d meet PE students, dentistry students, doctors, and so on,” said Ellis.
“Now, students tend to stick with people from their schools or areas, which wasn’t the case back then.
“It was just freedom, with great governance from the people who ran the pubs, they kept an eye on you to make sure you didn’t get too raucous. You were drinking 4% Speights, so you couldn’t do too much harm and everything was done in high spirit, never with any malice, and if that occurred people got sorted out pretty quick.
“It was a melting pot, and that was the beauty of the pub scene in Dunedin, you got the chance to cross-pollinate ... From our perspective, we saw a huge benefit in meeting people you wouldn’t be able to otherwise meet.”
The Cook was another favourite of Ellis.
“There was a big guy called Merv who used to work up there with a massive gut, and he was relatively docile and slow. And the challenge was to rip his shirt off over his belly button before he grabbed you. If you could do that, you wouldn’t have to buy many beers that night. And if you get kicked out of course, you’d shimmy back up the pipe outside to climb in a window.”
Kronfield recalled The Gardies as a traditional spot for university rugby players.
“Various teams had sponsorships, so there was the Bowling Green, the Cook, and I think the Oriental as well. Teams would often get free jugs, and there’d be a mad dash to get them,” said the 54-Test capped All Black.
“One of my greatest memories was at the tail end of my university, playing with Midge Marsden at the Gardens Tavern upstairs, on the harmonica with a band called Fold. The place was absolutely going off. It was such a special time.
“The Bowling Green, or the Bowler, was another iconic spot. Back in the day, there was a pizza place right next to it, and you’d walk out and go straight for a feed. It’s a shame that side of things doesn’t exist for young students today.
“Even just someone saying, ‘It’s a crap day, let’s go for a feed’, and you walk down the road, and you walk into a warm pub, and you’ll bump into someone friends, and next thing, you’re having a few beers and a nice feed. All those things are gone, it makes no sense.”
Established in 1860, The Captain Cook Tavern closed its doors in 2013. Despite a handful of revival attempts, most recently a short-lived transformation and name-change to Dive in 2020, The Cook’s days are done, and, these days, pizza chain Sal’s sits in its place.
In its heyday, it ran the Cook-A-Thon, an all-day drinking event complete with branded t-shirts. Its massive garden bar was routinely packed on a Saturday night.
In 2009, the Otago Daily Times reported the University of Otago director of student services David Richardson deemed the event a “scandalous abomination” at a hearing of the Liquor Licensing Authority.
Closer to the Octagon end of town was Urban Factory, previously named The Outback. It closed its doors in 2016 and in 2018, the empty building was demolished to make way for a car park. At that time, a former manager told the ODT there was no commercial sense in running a nightclub outside the Octagon.
Established in 1876, The Bowler was purchased by the university in 2009 and converted into academic offices. Tales of The Bowler are legion, and its general manager Mark Deason often found himself in the press for less than flattering reasons.
In February 2007, Deason faced a charge of sedition when he had 15,000 pamphlets printed advertising a swap petrol-for-beer promotion. The prize on offer was a petrol-soaked couch and a box of matches. Punters were also offered to swap a litre of petrol for a litre of beer.
The charges against Deason were dropped, but the Liquor Licensing Authority ordered the bar to close for three days. The Bowler was also criticised for its ‘Wife Beater Wednesday’, where punters were encouraged to wear singlets in exchange for a discount. The marketing manager who came up with the idea was sacked.
In the former Hanover Street Baptist Church, the nightclub The Mission existed. It was later named The Vatican, and finally Monkey Bar. The club went into liquidation in 2013, its owner going to ground amidst a flurry of allegations from disgruntled creditors and employees, including allegations of using gang members to intimidate rivals. He was later banned from operating a company for eight years.
While operating, the bar faced criticism for plastering the former church with alcohol advertisements. It was perhaps most infamous for its ‘sex pit,’ a central pit on the dancefloor overlooked by the former church’s defunct organ pipes.
In contention for the city’s most iconic pub was Gardies (or, the Gardens Tavern), Dunedin’s first purpose-built tavern. In 2010, it closed its doors for the final time, and now in its place is a University of Otago-owned study centre. Gardies hosted International Nude Day, the Undie 500, and its Beerable Arts competition was judged by former-regular Marc Ellis.
In 2008, on the back of the global financial crisis, Ellis took a stab at purchasing the tavern for $1 million, but was outbid by the university who paid $1.6m.
“We thought of buying Gardies and selling the bricks to people who had completed their degrees - each brick with a name on a big brass plaque. That would underwrite the purchase.
“We had it covered by breweries in any event. We planned to put sawdust on the floors and swinging doors to celebrate the fact that there had been generations of people who belonged to that pub,” Ellis said.
As student bars dwindled, Starters Bar, formerly The Oriental, lived on. In 2018, the bar was purchased by the Otago University Students Association. Despite the best efforts of its new owners, the bar closed in September 2021, and North Dunedin was then totally bereft of student bars.
National officer for alcohol harm prevention Senior Sergeant Ian Paulin, formerly based in Dunedin, bore witness to the fall of the pubs.
“We were aware people were buying their alcohol, or most of their alcohol, in off-licences as cheaply as possible and pre-loading and then going into bars and basically drinking water,” he said.
“There were issues within the bars - obviously you’re going to get that when you get large amounts of young people, and there were different styles of management and some promotions that went astray, but they were generally able to be dealt with and rectified.
“They were still a safe place for students to go and drink at, compared to what you get at an off-licence where there is no control.”
OUSA general manager Jason Schroeder said that when the organisation signed the lease and purchased the building, there was a commitment from the landlords for redevelopment, but due to Covid-19 and increasing building supply costs, there was no follow-through.
“We had to make the tough decision to exit because the building had a low earthquake rating and wasn’t safe. The business itself ran well; it was just the building that wasn’t fit for purpose,” Schroeder said.
Schroeder said there was still keen interest from OUSA to purchase a new student pub - though the task is easier said than done.
“We need a student bar that can get a good couple of hundred, ideally 400-500 people through the door to be financially viable and have the greatest impact on reducing alcohol harm... The right bar needs to be in the right location, with a capacity of at least 400-500 to ensure financial viability and impact.”
Paulin said police were also “totally supportive” of a couple of large student bars starting up, where students could drink in a controlled environment.
He said Dunedin police had a really strong relationship with OUSA, working with them through their ownership of the Starters Bar and organising the Hyde St keg party and other events.
Police had worked to support Starters Bar, including pushing through its bid for longer hours before the District Licensing Committee, Paulin said.
Schroeder said OUSA were constantly in discussions with real estate agents and local businesses to try to find a suitable venue, though there was a lack of venues in North Dunedin that catered to the needed capacity.
“We’re committed to trying to get something, you know, close to the student population, rather than in the centre of town.”
From Ellis’ perspective, a reinvention of the drinking culture was needed.
“What I’d be doing is opening a pub where people pay per week to be a member of that pub, and then you go in there and get a jug for five bucks,” he said.
“That just drives people back to on-premise, and not only that, but for $30 a week if you’ve got 1000 students paying, that’s 30 grand coming through the till before you open the door.”
Ben Tomsett is a Multimedia Journalist for the New Zealand Herald, based in Dunedin.
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