Leo Molloy: Angry wives, political bro hugs among Headquarters' party secrets

Leo Molloy is preparing for a final party at Headquarters this weekend before closing the establishment for good. Photo / Supplied

If you've heard the name Leo Molloy, there are probably some adjectives that quickly follow: Controversial. Opinionated. Crass. But, via his publicist, an invitation for the Herald to hear about the weird, wild and sometimes heart-warming happenings at Headquarters before it closes for good, leaves some fresh descriptors to associate with this anomaly of a man.

"It's like I have a guardian angel over my shoulder. I'm Catholic, in case you didn't know," says the Irish descendant, the sun, fittingly, shining warm upon his face as he sits on the balcony of his soon-to-be-laid-to-rest Headquarters at Auckland's Viaduct.

"Whenever I find myself with, I suppose, a vacuum in my life, it's like an opportunity pops up. If I stumble and fall, which occasionally I do, I always come up smelling of roses."

In this case, the year was 2016 and Molloy had fallen into "a particularly difficult marriage break-up". The month after reaching a settlement with his ex-wife, Viaduct Holdings got in touch with an offer that, originally, didn't exactly present with a floral note.

"This was a fish factory," he says, extending an upturned palm to the eclectic Balinese-meets-wabi-sabi décor - all his doing – of Headquarters.

Molloy serving his punters at Headquarters. Photo / Supplied

"Four others turned it down before I took it ... I was the only one brave enough to do it," says Molloy, a West Coast-born jockey-turned-vet-turned-restaurateur who has now, at 66, thrown his hat in the ring for Auckland's mayoralty.

"I used to use the word coruscating to describe myself – in the sense of being brilliant. But also in the sense of being a raw critic. I am of any government or bad policy," says Molloy, who has certainly displayed both.

In Headquarters, intended to be a two-year pop-up bar, Molloy built an outfit that at its height he claims turned over $18 million a year and held a staff of 80 in the high season. And, he tells the Herald, it sold the most champagne ("500 bottles a week") of any bar in the country, served up to international celebrities, local politicians and "a f***ing lot of police drinking after hours".

But arguably larger than the alleged figures generated by his waterfront hotspot is the character of Molloy himself. Making headlines for issues as serious as breaching the name suppression of Grace Millane's killer, to a debacle over confetti spilled into the Viaduct from one of his tables ("Someone had a 40th birthday party and burst a balloon. It's not a headline."), there was no way Molloy's offer to recount the happenings at Headquarters was ever going to be just that.

He seizes the opportunity to have a dig at Auckland's current mayor, one "wooden" Phil Goff ("He walked up the back steps and straight into me ... I made him stand to attention and have a bro hug and do a photo opportunity. He kept saying, 'this is awkward.' I kept saying, 'Phil, don't be so wooden, Man. Just chill.'") and offers the names of journalists who have apologised for their coverage or commentary about him.

"I am a loud critic. They can take soundbites out of what I say. And sadly, occasionally they conflate them to turn them into a different story. Which is sad but I'm kind of used to it now."

Dressed in a chequered two-tone blue blazer, soft, tawny loafers and striped socks on his feet, Molloy tells the Herald he lives his life at "a torrid pace", his home a short walk from his bar.

And as he removes his Daddy Cool, Jack Nicholson-esque shades, he reveals he wears them because he has an issue with his retina. "As you get to my age you get a few design faults you've got to deal with."

He doesn't sleep much and has been to the doctor recently to evaluate his cronies' theory that he has ADHD.

"I don't. [My doctor] is of the view that I'm manic. I think the word to describe that is busy. I keep myself busy and I do live life at a fairly torrid pace. Much more than the average human being. Most people always say to me, 'we simply can't keep up with your pace of life.'

"By the time you mix up all the bits and pieces there's not a lot of time for sleeping. I suffer from an incredibly active brain. This morning I woke up at 1am and I thought, if you dare start thinking, Leo, you're not going to get to sleep again."

As varied in manner and kind as the man himself - at one point he describes himself as a c***, at another he's relaying the sweet meet and greet he set up for a quivering youth with Shania Twain - tales from Headquarters run the gamut from keeping mum about patrons "breaking the seventh commandment" and "DNA swapping" to pep talks with teens and making meals for the homeless.

Asked if Headquarters has been a playground for debauchery, Molloy is quick to quash the suggestion.

Molloy with Sir Graham Henry and friends. Henry is scheduled to host Molloy as mayoral candidate at an event on Waiheke on Sunday. Photo / Supplied

"It's early ripe, early rotten. Busy from five o'clock then the till sales fall off the cliff here at about midnight and they're finished by about one.

"There have been a lot of big party nights here. A lot of dancing, a lot of kissing, might have been a bit of DNA swapping. On very rare occasions I might've been guilty of contributing to that. But certainly not in recent years - I've moderated my behaviour considerably.

"I'd say if there's anything going on that's remotely bacchanalian-style hedonism, I don't think this would be the place for it. It's normal behaviour here. I'm not sure the seventh commandment is written in stone here, but that's not my job to moralise about such matters."

He says staff have fielded "a lot of calls" over the years from concerned spouses wondering why their other half didn't come home last night.

"'Was my wife or husband there? Who were they with? Can you share footage?'

"My view on that is that's a dilemma for a married couple."

Amid the patrons who may or may not have been making bad on their marriage vows, celebrities international and local have frequented Headquarters too, often striking up a friendship with Molloy.

He remembers being called in one day by his duty manager to speak with "a guy who's got a bar in Hawaii".

"So, I came down and said, 'Where's this dude sitting?' He pointed him out. He had a sort of pork pie hat on. I said, 'Did he say what bar he owns in Hawaii?' No. 'Did he look familiar?' Didn't really look at him that close. 'How tall is he?' About 6.4.

"'Looks like Mick Fleetwood to me.'"

"'F***,' he said. 'It is'."

"So I said, 'Put the song on' – you know where he does the drum solo? And I walked over and sure enough, it was Mick Fleetwood. He came back three or four times. Did a number swap. Did photos with all the staff.

"I stopped texting him a couple of years ago."

Did Molloy leave him hanging?

"No, I wasn't rude. It just got to the stage where he was probably looking for a business opportunity and I wasn't. So, there was just no point in connecting. I don't need to know Steve Tyler's coming to stay at your house this weekend. You can drop as many names as you like. It doesn't mean anything to me.

"You get to the stage where you see so many of those people you get desensitised. They're just people at the end of the day. You just treat everybody the same because, at the end of the day, we are all the same."

Molloy says he has friends "across the spectrum. Poor to rich", and has delighted in putting on fundraising events and charity auctions.

"We helped Hone Harawera with his Tai Tokerau league," he says of the $75,000 raised for the Far North rugby club in 2019.

Molloy has become a good friend of retired boxer and motivational speaker David Letele. Photo / Supplied

"We've done a bit with Monty Betham with his foundation. We still cook for the Grace Foundation once a week – named after Dave Letele's sister who died.

"We help a lot of people on a micro scale," he says before listing the figures and various groups fed from the Headquarters' kitchen in recent times.

"The firemen, when they had the big fire up at Sky City, we looked after them. We tallied up 45,000 [meals] during the various lockdowns for homeless and charitable. The record one day was 754.

"During lockdown, a whole precinct had gone down and we got a call on behalf of Waitemata Health Board. They wanted 260 meals at short notice. So, we did that, fed them that night and lunch the next day.

"We've had local churches of no particular denomination that come to us at short notice and say, we have 100 people we can't feed today."

Molloy at Headquarters with Monty Betham. Photo / Supplied

As Molloy readies for a final party at Headquarters this weekend before turning his attention to Auckland's mayoral race, at the age of 66, the question begs - did he get tired of the hospo life?

"You don't ever get tired of doing what I do. There's no suggestion at all, ever, that it was going to be a stress-related matter," he says, noting the lease on Headquarters is up and he owns and is preparing to overhaul the pub next door, O'Hagans, anyway.

"I just have this vision that I want to be mayor of Auckland."

So are we about to see a different kind of Leo Molloy in the coming months? Perhaps:

"I never break a commandment these days. Which is boring but I never do. I don't do drugs. I'm not a rock star, groupie, party-boy wannabe. I'm just a worker. I might have had an appetite for inappropriate behaviour when I was young that I no longer have. We'll just park that there. I'm just a normal bloke. I've certainly well and truly moved on from that.

"I'm acutely aware now that I have children, five of them, who are at an age where they don't want to see things in the Herald about their father that embarrass them."