Pioneer Auckland city restaurateur dies

Tony White, with his son Jonny, bought an Italian pasta place in Wellesley St in 1963 and started serving steaks. File Photo / NZ Herald

The man who changed Auckland's hospitality scene has died after a long battle with an auto-immune disease.

Tony White, 74, co-founded Tony's Restaurant.

"He was an entrepreneur whose ideas impacted so many people and whose legacy is written all over the Auckland landscape," said his son Jonny White. He said if it was not for his father, dining out in Auckland would not be what it was today.

Mr White died on November 24 at Auckland Hospital and was remembered at a service a week later attended by more than 200 people.

The Australian-born restaurateur moved from Melbourne to Auckland in 1961 when an opportunity arose with a textile company. At the time, there were a few restaurants in Auckland.

On February 16, 1963, Tony's Restaurant opened in Wellesley St. It was originally an Italian pasta house, but it soon specialised in steaks which it continues to do today.

It soon became famous for its great food and a queue of people would often stretch down to Queen St - attracted by the smell of sizzling steaks that wafted from the restaurant.

As the decades passed, Tony's became Auckland's longest-surviving restaurant.

But Mr White didn't settle for just one thriving restaurant and over the years he had a hand in starting almost a dozen Auckland watering holes - including the Birdcage, the Nag's Head and the Harlequin sports bars.

Mr White sold out of Tony's long ago and his many partners over the years have moved on to other things. Among them was Epsom MP John Banks, who answered an advertisement for a dishwasher in 1973 and within nine months was a partner. That was the beginning of a 20-year business relationship between the two men, who developing the Birdcage and the Cavalier in College Hill together.

While he was a busy man at the height of his business, Mr White always made time for his wife, Pat, who he divorced in 1985, and three children, Lizzie, Phillipa and Jonny.

"It was fantastic having him as a father - it was very exciting. He would always take us out to eat at his restaurants which was great," said Jonny White.

Lizzie White worked in the restaurants and her first job was at Tony's King Edward.

"I started off washing dishes, then I moved on to entrees, then backing up the cook, who was Dad, it was very stressful and he fired me a few times; as soon as service was over, all was forgotten." It was an honour being his daughter, she said.

Mr White had Wegener's granulomatosis for more than 20 years, and died of complications from the illness.

Jonny White said his father's entrepreneurial spirit persisted right to the end and in his last weeks, he had a final flourish of ideas.

Among them were his own pre-wake party, an annual bogan pride party at the Harlequin, a guided weight loss programme for a 200kg patient he had befriended at the hospital and a new Tony's Burger.