Save the Cook!

Vaughan Elder at the ODT reports:

The future of historic Dunedin student watering hole the Captain Cook is unclear.

DB Breweries’ lease of the bar runs out at the end of June, and the operations manager of Cook Brothers Bars, which subleases the bar, believed the bar would most likely close when the lease ran out.

”I would find it hard to believe that anyone would [take over the bar],” Guy Randall said.

However, Noel Kennedy, one of three directors of Orari Street Properties Investments Ltd, which owns the building, said there was no question of the Cook closing, ”and we will be fighting to make sure that never happens under our watch”. Various parties were being spoken to about taking over the lease, including DB, but ”nothing has been finalised at this point”, he said. …

The Captain Cook Tavern, known as the Cook, was established in 1860 and stands as the last of the three main student pubs in North Dunedin. The Gardens Tavern and the Bowler were earlier bought by the University of Otago, for conversion into academic facilities.

Dunedin would not be the same without the Cook. Oh, so many hours spent there. I hope it survives.