Napier bar, cafe and function centre The Filter Room has closed for the winter amid warnings of difficulties for bars and restaurants trading through seasonal down times.
It's the first time The Filter Room has closed in the 10 years since it opened by Hawke's Bay Breweries on its brewer site off Awatoto Rd, Meeanee.
Company director and consultant Steve Reynolds dismissed suggestions that it's a permanent closure and said the company is looking for a new operator following the departure of the latest tenant, and wants to have The Filter Room back in full swing by the summer.
"It's definitely not closed," he said. "It's closed for the winter."
It opened as the cellar door for the Brewery, best known originally for the introduction of Mates beer but later a range of specialised ales and ciders, and Mr Reynolds says its future is as the cellar door for the business and its products, and also as a night-time function centre which has hosted events such as 21st birthdays.
"It's nearest neighbour is a brewery," he said.
Napier hotel The Provincial is also headed for some change, with new out-of-town building owners understood to be considering redevelopment expected to preserve the heritage-protected nature of the 84-year-old post-earthquake structure fronting Clive and Memorial squares.
The new owners are yet to announce plans for the building, which has a corner entrance at the intersection of the squares and the Emerson St shopping mile.
The Provincial, an icon of Napier CBD public bar culture which included the Central, Criterion and Masonic hotels up to the late 1980s and early 1990s, along with inner-city fringe bars such as the Cabana, Napier, Victoria, Terminus and Royal hotels, was owned by members of the Burgess family for many years until it was sold late last year.
Lessee Joe Taylor has operated the bar premises over the last 14 years under such names as the Milonga Dance Bar, the Dram and Cock Whiskey Bar and Jazz Joe's Piano Bar, as well as The Provincial.
Napier licensed liquor trade stalwart Basil Diack, who was proprietor of the now long-gone Victoria Hotel on Marine Parade in its heyday and who was a founding director the brewery says Napier has a problem with its number of liquor licences.
"I think there are currently 187 for a city of about 57,000 people, while Tauranga, for example, has 300 for a population of 117,000," he said. It represents one licence for every 305 people in Napier, or 390 in Tauranga.
He said the Napier trade relies on visitor numbers, but needs more "locals", particularly in the winter months.
"Everyone says what a great weekend Art Deco weekend was, and it was, but there are 52 weekends in the year," he said.
Dry winter in the bar trade
QUIET: The Filter Room Ale and Cider House has been closed for winter. PHOTO DUNCAN BROWN
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