Michael's Guide to Bars in Christchurch

Some may criticize the demon drink, but I like alcohol. I like the taste, I like the effect, and I like bars. However, not all bars are created equal, so this is my guide to the bars in Christchurch, New Zealand. It is a biased review, but it may be helpful. What makes a good bar depends on what you want to do, so I split the bars into two groups, and ordered them by how well I think they serve their task.

Just Hanging at the Bar

The Dux Delux, Sammie's Jazz Review, Mainstreet, Belgian Beer Café Torenhof, Zinc, The Wunderbar, Zydeco Bar, Bentley's Bar, The Concrete Club, Foam Bar, The Jolly Poacher, The Bog, Warner's Hotel, The Loaded Hog, The Treehouse, Mickey Finns, The Foundry

Having a Dance

Heaven, Carbon, Zinc, Base, Eye Spy, Home Café and Bar, Mickey Finn's, Shooters, The Carlton Hotel, The Strip, Legends

Sadly, a few good bars have closed over the years, so I end with a list of some closed bars.

Base

Base is smaller than Carbon and plays a similar range of music. I prefer djs at Carbon, but a good time can still be had at Base.

Base, Colombo Street
Atmosphere Intimate, for a club.
Music Drum and base.
What to Drink Anything; it's all expensive.
My Best Evening Dancing with a friend and suddenly finding that were the only two left on the dance floor.
Base, Colombo Street
Atmosphere Intimate, for a club.
Music Drum and base.
What to Drink Anything; it's all expensive.
My Best Evening Dancing with a friend and suddenly finding that were the only two left on the dance floor.

Belgian Beer Café Torenhof

The full name of this quaint bar is a bit of a mouth-full so it is normally called The Belgian Beer Bar (by me at least). The bar is part of a chain that has branches in many of the major cities in New Zealand; despite this it has an excellent atmosphere, which is helped by its location in the old Canterbury Provincial Chambers.

The wide variety of beer can be daunting for some people, but it is quite nice to sit down with a beer menu and try to decide which will go best with your meal. I like them all!

Belgian Beer Café Torenhof, Corner of Armagh Street and Oxford Terrace
Atmosphere Cozy.
Music If there was any, I cannot recall what was playing!
What to Drink Belgian Beer (duh).
My Best Evening Eating an enormous pot of mussels before going to hear the NZSO playing at the Christchurch Town Hall.

Bentley's Bar

Named after a cat that managed to become Student President at the University of Canterbury for four years running, Bentley's Bar (hereafter know as Bentleys) is the smaller of the two bars on Ilam Campus. It used to be the only bar, but then the Student's Union opened The Foundry, which improved Bentleys immeasurably as all the filthy undergraduate students went there rather than climb the stairs and disturb the postgraduates in Bentleys.

Bentley's Bar, Ilam Road
Atmosphere Cozy and warm.
Music Nothing special.
What to Drink Monteith's Original on Tap.
My Best Evening Finished a hard week at Uni, and got to chill with a few mates and a few beers.

The Bog

Like Mickey Finns, The Bog is an Irish bar. However, The Bog does a better job than Mickey Fins, with better decor, better ventilation, and Irish bar-staff. The Bog used to be quite good, but for some reason it has gone down hill and can get quite dead further on in the evening. However, it still can be quite good if you catch it between 1800–2000.

The Bog, Cashell Street
Atmosphere Irish.
Music Irish, but folksy Irish, rather than the Cranberries or U2.
What to Drink I can't stand Guinness, but if you are going to drink one anywhere in Christchurch you may as well drink it here.
My Best Evening Having some chips and beer with a couple of mates before going to see Shihad play at the Town Hall.

Carbon

Consistently hosting quality hip-hop and electronica acts, Carbon is a fantastic place to check out if you feel like dancing. They normally have a cover-charge during the weekends, but it will not break the bank and it means that those wearing Airtex shirts pass Carbon by to go to a bar more suited to them.

Carbon, Lichfield Street
Atmosphere It depends on what is playing, but it usually has a good vibe.
Music Drum and base forms the backbone of the Christchurch electronic scene, and most of the djs are good at it.
What to Drink Anything, but Becks is good beer to dance with.
My Best Evening Dancing to Funkin Slow Cuts, Mysterious D, and Confucius.

The Carlton Hotel

The Carlton Hotel (hereafter known as The Carlton) is the closest bar to my flat, but oddly it is not my local. (That would be The Dux.) I guess it is not my local because of The Carlton's clientele, which are normally people from outside Christchurch. Not tourists, per sae, but Canterbarians who are visiting Christchurch. I don't dislike them, but they are not my kind of people.

And the music sux.

The Carlton Hotel, corner of Papanui Road and Bealey Ave
Atmosphere Rural.
Music Crap.
What to Drink Monteith's.
My Best Evening Drinking at 1730 on a Wednesday (when it is all quiet) with my flatmates.

The Concrete Club

One of the harder bars to find, The Concrete Club is located underneath The Loaded Hog on Manchester Street. It used to be called Sanguine, and like its predecessor it has atmosphere to burn. You sit in the fake-swade covered booths looking at the legs of lesser beings walking on the footpath upstairs.

The current owners have realised that the site is not suitable for a dance club so they have a fairly large amount of seating, a couple of pool tables and the music is kept at a volume that allow conversations to take place without shouting.

The Concrete Club, Corner of Manchester and Cashel Streets
Atmosphere Cool.
Music Anything from roots through to drum and base
What to Drink Glavya.
My Best Evening Chilling with a friend, watching the world go by from a worm's perspective.

The Dux Delux

A tourist wanders around Christchurch at 17:30 on a Friday, wondering where every one is. The streets are quiet. A warm nor-west breeze brushes some litter toward the sea. Then — on the edge of hearing — the tourist perceives a hum coming from the Arts Center. Going to investigate, the tourist discovers a throng of people outside the Dux Delux, which is situated on one edge of the Arts Center. It appears that almost all people in Christchurch in the 18–40 age-group are there, drinking beer and talking loudly.

The Dux Delux (from now on referred to as The Dux) is one of the most popular venues in Christchurch. It has a large outdoor seating area, three bars, a micro-brewery, and a restaurant. It has to close at midnight because of the residents that live along Hereford Street, but this also means that The Dux is also one of the first bars to open: hence the large crowd there after work on a Friday.

The Dux has hosted most of the big names in the New Zealand music scene before they made it big! Everything from dub to death-metal is played, so keep and ear out as you may hear something you like one day.

The Dux Delux, corner of Montreal Street and Hereford Street
Atmosphere Jumping.
Music Various live acts.
What to Drink Ginger Tom (alcoholic ginger beer).
My Best Evening Having some refreshing Ginger Toms before listening to New Damage play some fast-core skate rock.

Eye Spy

I am not sure if Eye Spy is small or simply popular, but either way, it is not the sort of place to swing a cat. Dispite the croud, the club has a good vibe, with well-mixed house that does not challenge the audience, but it is fun to listen to. The decor is quite funky, with fake brown and tan ostrich-skin panels lining the walls and seats.

Oddly, Eye Spy is the only place in Christchurch that I have ever seen that serves Heineken on tap. I do not really like Heineken, but you may differ.

Eye Spy, Lichfield Street
Atmosphere Funky.
Music House.
What to Drink Heineken, on tap!
My Best Evening Laughing at my drunk mates trying to dance while I (as the sober one) made sure they did not get into fights.

Foam Bar

Foam Bar is similar to Home Café and Bar in that it also has a '70s retro feel. However, Foam is more of a traditional bar, with less of a club feel and more of a sitting-around-and-drinking feel. While I have always enjoyed drinking at Foam, I usually feel too scruffy\ldots

Foam Bar, Bedford Row
Atmosphere '70s Retro.
Music I honestly cannot remember what the music was like.
What to Drink Anything but beer.
My Best Evening Just chilling with a friend drinking gin and tonics.

The Foundry

The larger of the two bars at the University of Canterbury, The Foundry is also louder than its compatriot. I don't like it much, because it tends to be crowded with a lot of young things that make me feel old.

The Foundry, Ilam Road
Atmosphere Loud and young.
Music Shit.
What to Drink You'd get odd looks if you ordered anything other than DB Export.
My Best Evening Celebrating a friends birthday in summer, when there were no undergraduates.

Heaven

Heaven competes with Base and Carbon for the biggest, fattest, and loudest drum and base music in Christchurch. However, Heaven has two advantages over its rivals:

  1. Resident dj, Aragorn, and
  2. A really nice chill-out lounge, with leather couches.
Heaven, Colombo Street
Atmosphere .
Music Drum and Base.
What to Drink South Gin and Red Bull. (Trust me, it's nice.).
My Best Evening Finishing a night of hacking on ldots.org, trucking up to Heaven 02:30 and having a damn good boogie.

Home Café and Bar

During the day, Home Café and Bar (hereafter known as Home) offers good coffee and nice meals for a reasonable price. At night Home becomes a dance venue, but retains the ability to produce a decent espresso until the early hours. At night the music is generally House, with cooler lounge music during the day.

The decor follows a 70s retro theme with quite a few dark corners to snuggle into. This may not be to everyones taste, but I like it.

Home Café and Bar, Bedford Row
Atmosphere 70s Retro.
Music House.
What to Drink Coffee.
My Best Evening Hanging with some mates and having the occasional dance.

The Jolly Poacher

The Jolly Poacher is the bar in Christchurch that feels the most like a bar. People just go there to drink and talk. Bands don't play. People don't dance. Just people hanging out. It's greatest advantage is that it stays open until the wee small hours, unlike The Dux or Mainstreet.

The Jolly Poacher, Victoria Street
Atmosphere Like a bar.
Music The greatest hits of the '80, '90s, and today.
What to Drink Mack's Black.
My Best Evening Hanging out with fellow geeks and eating wedges.

Legends

Legends is a party bar (like Shooters). Its business model revolves around getting a large number of people to drink a lot of cheap drinks. It is crowded. It has the worst music-selection of any bar in Christchurch. The drinks are terrible. There is nothing that I like about this bar.

Legends, corner of Bedford Row and Madras Street
Atmosphere Crap.
Music Crap.
What to Drink Meths.
My Best Evening I have never had a good evening at Legends.

The Loaded Hog

There is a Loaded Hog in almost every city in New Zealand, and Christchurch is no exception. For some reason I find the concept of a chain of bars odd. Fast-food outlets, yes. Supermarkets, yes. Bars, no.

Having said that, The Loaded Hog is not a bad bar. It serves beer, it is not too crowded, the music is better than Legends, and people must like it otherwise they would not create a chain.

The Loaded Hog, Corner of Manchester and Cashell Street
Atmosphere They try for a rural ambiance with old farming equipment bolted to the walls, but it feels manufactured to me.
Music Generic music that gets people dancing while not offending the 40+ age bracket.
What to Drink They have their own house-beer, but I have never tried it. I usually cradle an imported beer whenever I am there.
My Best Evening Meeting a friend from Hamilton that I had not seen in a long time.

Mainstreet

An excellent vegetarian café by day, Mainstreet becomes an equally excellent bar by night. I tend to go there when the crowds at The Dux gets too much for me, and I am usually glad that I did. Like The Dux, Mainstreet also closes quite early, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Mainstreet has the best selection of beers in Christchurch. English, Dutch, Flemish, Danish, and German beers are all present. An excellent place to hang, listen to a local act, and try a beer you have never had before.

Mainstreet, Colombo Street
Atmosphere Cozy.
Music Good live bands, albeit obscure at times.
What to Drink Anything! Just pick a beer at random and see if you like it.
My Best Evening Listening to all sorts of strange sounds being played as part of an open-mike night. Very fun.

Mickey Finns

Micky Finns is an Irish bar. In reality, it is very similar to other bars except that it has a few more shamrocks dotted around. It tends to be quite smoky due to the lack of outside ventilation and the older clientele. Its advantage is that it has a quite a few pool tables; you can have a really good evening listening to the covers band playing hits from the '80s and '90s and shooting some pool.

Micky Finns, Hereford Street
Atmosphere Smokey and Irish.
Music Cover Bands.
What to Drink Mack's Gold.
My Best Evening Playing pool while laughing at the people dancing to the covers band.

Sammie's Jazz Review

Everyone who is not at The Dux after work on a Friday is probably at Sammie's Jazz Review (hereafter known as Sammies). Besides being a fantastic bar, Sammies is also a restaurant, but I have never had sufficient finances to find out how good it is.

As the name suggests, live jazz is played most nights, which matches the atmosphere created by the brick-courtyard. I often end up at Sammies at the end of the evening, winding down by drinking a quiet beer and eating the excellent chips and garlic aolie.

Sammie's Jazz Review, Bedford Row
Atmosphere Jazzy, urban, but relaxed.
Music Live jazz.
What to Drink No drinks are particularly special; I usually order a Monteith's Black.
My Best Evening Sitting with a large group of friends under a patio-heater, eating chips, and listening to Oakley Grenell play some truly funky jazz.

Sanguine

Probably the hardest bar to find, Sanguine is located underneath The Loaded Hog. It has atmosphere to burn, as you can see all the lesser beings, who cannot find Sanguine, walking on the footpath upstairs while you listen to some funky beats.

I suspect that Sanguine is trying to be a club, but I have never seen anyone dance there. Instead, people just seem to sit around and listen to the electronica, which is fine but it does seem a bit of a waste of a venue.

If I had my way I would turn it into a jazz club. But I don't have enough money to purchase it and turn it into a jazz club. Sigh.

Sanguine, Corner of Manchester and Cashell Street
Atmosphere Cool.
Music Trance/House.
What to Drink Imported Beer.
My Best Evening Chilling with a friend, watching the world go by from a worm's perspective.

Shooters

Shooters is a party bar, which basically means that they sell fairly cheep drinks in high volume to make a profit. This makes the bar quite crowded, but the toilets are so weird that I can forgive the occasionally poor music-selection and large crowd!

Shooters, Manchester Street
Atmosphere Skanky.
Music Surprisingly good house.
What to Drink Beer. It is all the same.
My Best Evening I like it when pretty girls dance.

The Strip

The Strip is not a bar, it is a row (or strip) of bars along Oxford Terrace, overlooking the Avon River. It includes The Boulevard, The Tap Room, Coyote's, and numerous other bars that are better left nameless. I bundle them all together because, really, it is hard to tell them apart. They play the same music, serve the same drinks, and the same food. I avoid the strip as much as possible.

The Strip, Oxford Terrace
Atmosphere Skanky.
Music Whatever is popular on the radio, interspersed with the Grease Party Mega-Mix.
What to Drink Anything, but drink a lot and drink it quickly (sometimes memory loss is good).
My Best Evening Forgetting about how much you dislike the place and having a fun time with friends.

The Treehouse

Every city needs a karaoke bar, and The Treehouse is Christchurch's biggest. I cannot say that I am a big fan of karaoke, but if it's your kink go for it.

The Treehouse, Manchester Street
Atmosphere Fun.
Music Karaoke.
What to Drink It depends on how drunk you need to be to start singing.
My Best Evening Drinking miscellaneous beer and laughing like a drainpipe at people attempting to sing songs that are way to complex for them. So much fun!

Warner's Hotel

Are you a backpacker? Do you like backpackers? If you answered yes to either question, then Warner's Hotel (hereafter known as Warners) is the place for you. There are two backpackers near Warners so it is quite a popular watering hole for quite a large number of knapsack wearing Australians, English, Germans, and Canadians.

Locals will normally go to Warners to watch a game or cricket or rugby on the large outdoor screen. If going out and watching sports is your thing, then you cannot go to a better place. Having said that, the ugliest woman I have ever seen was at Warners. Shudder.

Warner's Hotel, Cathedral Square
Atmosphere Foreign and busy.
Music Covers bands, normally.
What to Drink Canterbury Draft.
My Best Evening Attending the dawn-service on Anzac day (like Poppy Day, or Veterans Day) and seeing the backpackers being woken up by the army firing their guns. Every year it makes me laugh.

The Wunderbar

The Wunderbar (pronounced Vunderbar) is probably the weirdest bar in Christchurch. The decor has to been seen to believed: strange collections of dolls, lamps and odds and ends. The music is normally good, and the venue is one of my favorites.

The Wunderbar, Lyttleton
Atmosphere Weird, but not disconcertingly so.
Music Random, just like the decor.
What to Drink Rum and Coke.
My Best Evening Bowling up after a conference and discovering this weird poet called Brodney Treenut performing the worst poetry I have ever heard. It was simply fantastic.

Zydeco Bar

Zydeco Bar occupies what used to be The Strada Bar, situated upstairs from Zydeco Restaurant (the only Cajun eatery in Christchurch) and across for The Christchurch Casino. Unlike most upstairs bars, Zydeco has a balcony. The balcony is surprisingly sheltered, so voyeurism is possible even on cool autumn evenings.

The beer is good, with a fine range of imported beers as well Monteith's Beer on tap.

Zydeco Bar, Victoria Street
Atmosphere It wants to be jazzy, but feels more like a dance club with the wrong music playing.
Music Jazz, with a live band most weekends.
What to Drink Monteith's Pilsner on tap.
My Best Evening Eating a seafood gumbo (ordered from the restaurant downstairs) while watching the world go by.

Zinc

Zinc has the most comfortable couches in any bar in Christchurch. This allows the bar to have a relaxed feel, which slowly disappears when The Civic (a large live-music venue) opens next-door. However, Zinc still offers welcome respite when you need a break from the gig.

Zinc, Manchester Street
Atmosphere Relaxed and cozy.
Music Normally dub, if no one is playing in Carbon.
What to Drink Red Bull and Vodka.
My Best Evening Popping in for some respite from boogieing to Concord Dawn and Minuit who were playing in The Civic.

Closed Bars

Alas, the bar trade is a cruel one, and many good venues have closed over the years. Here is a list of a few.

Sanguine
A nice bar that is now better since changing into The Concrete Club.
Citrus Café and Bar
An ok bar that turned into Jardi…
Jardi
A bar that was much like its predecessor, Citrus, and like its predecessor it has gone out of business.
Vesuvio's
One of my favourite watering holes, that closed down and is now a restaurant.