Nick Inkster, who owns many high-profile bars in Canterbury, has a winning formula during a tough time for hospitality. Photo / George Heard
Nick Inkster is a publican with the golden touch. He spoke to Herald senior journalist Mike Thorpe about his secrets to success during a tough period for New Zealand’s hospitality sector.
Even for a man with Nick Inkster’s record, the soon-to-be-refurbished Prebbleton Hotel looks like a challenging resuscitation. On the outside, the business seems to be in palliative care. On the inside, it’s already in various states of decomposition.
The old pub sits prominently on the corner of Springs and Tosswill Rds 11km southwest of Christchurch where it has existed in various forms since the 1860s. That’s when Edward Prebble turned his shop into a hotel after he realised the booze side of his business made the most money. It was rebuilt about 1907.
It’s now the latest resurrection project for Christchurch’s “hospo-Jesus”.
Inkster and his partners, the Norton brothers, Andrew and Richard, have been the saviours of many dilapidated sites in Canterbury.
Most recently, they breathed new life into a historic church on the corner of Manchester and Worcester Sts.
“It was going to the dump, basically – Lyttelton Harbour. It was gonna get knocked down and they saved it,” says Inkster.
The former Trinity Congregational Church reopened as The Church bar, restaurant and live music venue in 2023 – but it was built in 1875. There’s a pattern here.
“I love history, love the stories of old buildings and especially old pubs. I hate to see old pubs closed down,” says Inkster.
The Prebbleton Hotel, more recently known as Finnegan’s Irish Bar, wasn’t closing down, but it was in need of divine intervention.
“There are parts of this pub that haven’t been open for a long time,” says Inkster.
Among them is the restaurant, the Tack and Harness, which is caked in red velvet. Inkster believes it was “humming in the 90s”, but fell silent a few decades back and has been muzzled ever since.
It’s easy to write it off as a kooky trip down memory lane – but this is Inkster’s magic trick, seeing a future in its past.
“It’s got everything here, really. We could almost just open the doors after a good vacuum and a good clean, but we’ll do a bit more to freshen it up. It’s a great space,” he says.
His visions for buildings like this have a history of working out – and he has a theory of why.
“I believe hospitality sort of belongs in old buildings, you know? For me, old doesn’t get old. You can build a new pub today and it’ll get old in a few years because people have moved on from that,” says Inkster.
“But I believe if you’ve got a great building, a great old fit-out, great service, hospitality never gets old. It’s been like that for hundreds of years.”
His argument is reinforced across his portfolio of bars – which started with O.G.B.
“I wanted to bring an old offering back to Christchurch post-earthquakes. I guess my weapon there was being so naive, really. I sort of went into it not knowing a lot about the industry, being a builder by trade,” says Inkster.
O.G.B. is in the Old Government Building (built in 1913) on the fringe of Cathedral Square. It is a throwback speakeasy-style bar. Staff wear “prohibition-era” suspenders and cheese-cutter hats. It’s a theme that has become a symbol of Inkster’s brand.
“I just had a vision of building a really cool pub for the people of Christchurch,” he says.
He wouldn’t stop there – he even added the bar where it all began, in Lyttelton.
“Civil and Naval was more of a personal thing, really. I sat in that bar back in 2012 and kind of dreamed up the concept of O.G.B. I love a small bar – the intimacy of a small bar,” says Inkster.
The Inkster Group also owns The Austin Club, Fox and Ferret and Paddy McNaughton’s Irish Bar.
“Paddy McNaughton’s, that came with The Church – the building next door. Being the oldest wooden building in Christchurch [Shand’s Emporium] with the oldest stone building [The Church], there were some good stories to tell there,” says Inkster.
“It just screamed Irish pub and with the Nortons having an Irish background, we played on a character that was true to them. Paddy McNaughton, who was their great-great-great-grandfather. So, we played on a true story.”
The Nortons, sons of the late former All Blacks captain Tane Norton, have a history in hospitality and provide an occasional handbrake to Inkster’s limitless imagination.
“We counteract each other really well because they’re glass half-empty and I’m glass half-full,” says Inkster.
So how full was the glass when the toast of the Prebbleton Hotel was proposed?
“Normally, it’s quite a tough conversation, but this they see the vision in. It’s all about looking after locals and they know Prebbleton’s got a great local following,” says Inkster.
If the restaurant area is dated, the upstairs is a comparative archaeological site.
“Probably safe to say, confidently, that this was Canterbury’s first nightclub. They [previous owners the Gilmores] bought the pub in 1970 and this was 10 years of just humming, I think they closed it just before the 1980s,” says Inkster.
Drenched in shag-piled nostalgia, the former Acid Lounge is not in Inkster’s immediate plans for refurbishment – but it could become a function room. Eventually.
Downstairs, memorabilia will feature heavily – as is the Inkster way.
“What’s on the walls is sentimental to the Gilmores, so we’re going to honour that and basically showcase all that in our style,” he says.
Prebbleton residents will no doubt be grateful for the new offering – but Inkster is grateful to the previous owners, the Gilmore family.
“To their credit, they could have sold this to anybody really for more money, but they backed us with our concept of honouring the community,” says Inkster.
Work to realise that concept will begin in earnest soon.
“We will probably close for three-to-four weeks and basically have a new opening and invite the whole community and have a big, big party,” he says.
Inkster expects phase one of Prebbleton Hotel’s rebirth to be completed by Easter. Naturally.
And he predicts Christchurch’s revival will reach new heights in 2026.
“Not just because of the stadium [Te Kaha] opening, but I just feel we get through ‘25 and then into ‘26, I can feel it’s really going to be a great year for Christchurch. And we deserve it.”
Mike Thorpe is a senior multimedia journalist for the Herald based in Christchurch. He has been a broadcast journalist across television and radio for 20 years and joined the Herald in August 2024.
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Sick leave entitlements are about to change, according to the PM.