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The future of Auckland dining institution Swashbucklers is in doubt, following the deaths of two of the restaurant's 'personalities' within the space of a year.
The boisterous seafood eatery at Westhaven - which opened in the 1980s - lost its leader, the larger-than-life (Craig) Ginger Gibbs in January after he died of a heart attack.
Swashbucklers, according to patrons and staff, has never been the same since the 52-year-old died in his apartment above the restaurant. Then last week another well-known figure passed away, this time the bar manager Matthew Rimington, 37.
The Te Kuiti-born professional kickboxer and former real estate agent had returned to South Africa - the country he once married in - because "he just didn't feel like a Kiwi and South Africa was more like home for him".
Rimington's Auckland-based girlfriend, Katrine Johansen, described him as "a great man" who had the "x factor".
"When you have a person like Matt working in the bar he controls the room, he used to call himself the dominator. The customers loved him, they were his and knew all of their names and their stories," Johansen said.
An autopsy report was still being completed but it is understood the cause of Rimington's death in Johannesburg on June 23 was a drug overdose, possibly from heroin.
Now the Gibbs family has decided to call for tenders on the downtown building which is home to Swashbucklers.
