Labour Saving Devices.

Hi,

When Māui carved up the North Island, he did not have me in mind. The thing I hate the most in day-to-day life is walking up hills. It was particularly devastating to me to witness that the on-again, off-again escalators outside the council’s offices on Wellesley St East were finally boarded up on both sides last week. Avoiding the manual ascent of hills is particularly tricky in Auckland and these escalators represented the last great victory of mine, as I summit the Hobson St rise to get back to my car on Federal St every day on my commute home from work.

I have hated walking up hills for as long as I can remember. I grew up at the bottom of Rawene Rd in Birkenhead just above the Sugar Refinery and every school day began with a walk up to Highbury. At University, it was Albert Park. Later: up Bond St, up Karangahape Rd, up Victoria St West. Hills, everywhere. I write this not to complain but to tell you, my fellow Aucklanders, that these hills, these blights upon the central city, are largely avoidable. 

QUEEN ST TO ALBERT PARK: If you are trying to get from Queen St up towards the High St/Albert Park side, there are freely accessible escalators (and a lift) next to Foot Locker at 246 Queen St. Alternatively, there’s also one inside Whitcoulls – a good back-up in case the Foot Locker one isn’t working, as I have found at least 25% of the time.

Once on High/Lorne St you can get up to Kitchener Street using elevators in both the parking buildings. On Lorne St, look out for the Kitchener St Carpark Pedestrian Access sign, which is right across from the top of the escalator by Foot Locker. Walk through the Lynchian chessboard floor tiles into the carpark and take the lift to Level 5.

If you’re on High St, take the lift to Floor 6 using the Wilsons Carpark on Victoria St. There is also an outdoor elevator that goes up the little hill at the Metropolis end of Freyburg Square behind the stairs, if you want to get to the Sushi Train, or any of the stuff along the top end of the Chancery.  

QUEEN ST TO ALBERT/HOBSON: To go from Queen St up to Albert St, the best way is to take the escalators through the central atrium in the Atrium on Elliot St. These are motion sensitive and will turn on as you approach. If, like me, you use these every day, you can develop a friendly acknowledgment-based relationship with the guy selling bootleg suitcases at the top of the second escalator who does YouTube workouts all day while standing in his shop. You will be spat out on Albert St via the Crown Plaza hotel foyer.

It is at this point that you run into those now-closed Council escalators, which used to be a jewel of the city, and are now just a sad, motionless testament to our inability to keep up with legacy infrastructure costs. Do not lose heart, however, or despair at the thought of having to walk, like an animal, up the most annoyingly steep part of Wellesley St. I have already found a solution: walk back down Albert St from the Crown Plaza exit and go through the automatic doors at the back of the Sky City Grand Hotel Building by the Day Spa entrance, where there is an internal escalator that will take you up to Federal St. You’re welcome.

Take care,
Simon

P.S. Our newsletter once again showed up in some people’s Gmail Promotions tab last week. If that happens to you, it would be great if you moved it back into your main inbox so Google doesn’t regard us as trash.

THE CRINGE INDEX In case you missed it, we’ve launched our new CRINGE INDEX, a helpful database of all our favourite places to eat and drink. It also collates new openings, so you don’t have to crawl through the newsletters week-by-week, and features a guest list (best live bands) from Chris Schulz of music newsletter Boiler Room.

We’ll be adding to the Cringe Index continuously. At the moment, you can filter via cuisine, type, price point and location, with tips on what to order. We intend for this to be a start of a wider project that makes finding places a lot easier – because sifting through a million different sources of information is annoying and hard.

By Jean

EVENTS

There’s a TACO FESTIVAL this Sunday from 11am to 5pm at Tacoteca, with tacos from San Ray, Sagrado, Tempero and Tacoteca. Sponsored by my favourite tortilla makers, Hands Down.

There’s also a very cute-sounding afternoon outing at the KELAMARNA EQUINOX FESTIVAL this weekend, on Saturday 21 March. $15 cover charge for quite a few good musicians, including Geneva AM, plus of course “great food and organic wines”. 

Next Thursday night, 26 March, there’s a COLLABORATION DINNER between Trivet and Piha restaurant Aryeh, which is a $125pp dinner that “explores their culinary journeys”. 

Also, congratulations to Parnell Samoan restaurant TALA, which was named one of TIME magazine’s World’s Greatest Places 2026. It’s the only restaurant in Oceania to make the list!

Weirdly, there is a Synthony AFTER PARTY at KFC Ponsonby Rd on Saturday night with the Katayanagi Twins DJing. 11:30pm - 1am. Free entry and it looks like the KFC will be fully operational for the duration.

Yesterday we stumbled across what we believe to be the cheapest place to drink in the city — GEL Drink Bar, in the new Albert St food hall by Swanson St. It has an all-day happy hour with a wider selection of beer from $5.50, cask wine from $3.50 and rudimentary cocktails from $7.50. Open 11:30 to 8:30 every day but Sunday.

In annoyingly bad news it seems Commercial Bay restaurant Gochu has followed stable-mate Gemmi into closure. We had a look yesterday afternoon and a guy in Kome (next door) said that they had packed up and left the day before. It must have been pretty sudden as their tables are still eerily prepped for service. The charred chicken and milk buns were amazing and we will miss them.

–

NEW OPENINGS

There is a new tiramisu bar (!) called CHOCO MELT, which looks truly excessive in its offerings. I’m talking over eight flavours, like banana pudding, matcha and pistachio. Tiramisu bars have taken off overseas, but something I find it hard to get excited about – acai craze-adjacent.

KOMPASS COFFEE, which previously had only one space opposite the Auckland Art Gallery, is opening in the foyer space of the building full of media agencies at the bottom of Fanshawe St.

More openings in the fancy drinks world - CHAPANDA are now open by Queen St McDonalds whose specialty seems to be a Mango Pomelo Sago drink which they apparently sell 400,000,000 cups of a year (it’s a chain). There’s also a new one going in at 448 Dominion Rd, in the apartment building by Farro.

–

NON-EDIBLES

PRIZEGIVING The 2027 Walters Prize finalists HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED. Congratulations to Richard Frater who’s in for his show Nicky’s Conversion (2024), Ammon Ngakuru for Three Scenes (2024), Sorawit Songsataya for Fibrous Soul (2024) and Cringe favourite, Edith Amituanai for Vaimoe (2024). The shows will go up in the gallery in March next year with the winner announced in the middle of 2027.

LIT4LIT If you want to be kept in the loop of literary events (think: book launches, author talks, poetry nights and the like) throughout Aotearoa, then Laura Vincent has started up a newsletter, LIT4LIT, that rounds up all you need to know. I just received Vol. 4 in my email and it is very comprehensive and helpful!

by Mike

CONSTERNATION IN NEWMARKET, as the candy-floss pink of the former Augustine clothing outlet on the corner of Broadway and Balm St has been overpainted with the shock yellow that frequently signals the further proliferation of Australia’s most relentless pharmacy chain, Chemist Warehouse. This would be both stupefying yet somehow understandable: there are already two Chemist Warehouses within 200 metres, one squatting in the former Smith & Caughey’s and the other in Westfield. But with dozens of empty retail units languishing along Broadway, it seems few other than the canary juggernaut have the appetite to open up outside of the mall.

Whether or not Newmarket is about to be subjected to a third discount chemist, the contrast between our premier central shopping districts is increasing. Multi-level destination department store shopping is set to return to the CBD, with the windows of 131 Queen St now announcing Faradays mid-year opening, and Queens Arcade has confirmed their plans to pivot to the high-end. The investment momentum is all with downtown, and luxury is often the first sector to rebound after a slump. Let’s hope the largesse eventually gets spread around to help revitalise our other retail strip, before there’s little left on Broadway that isn’t captured by multibillion dollar Australian conglomerates.

By Simon

Items from the liquidation sales of Auckland’s two-speed recovery.

THE EMBRACE
Closes Monday, Current bid $35
It’s the leopard skin rug pinned between the couple’s private parts that does it for me. Straight to the mantlepiece with this masterpiece. 

19TH CENTURY BIBLE
Closes Monday, Current bid $65
Looks to be in pretty good nick. Ideal for swearing oaths on and looks like it would perform amazingly in an exorcism.

YET ANOTHER KITCHEN THINGS AUCTION
Closes Monday
If you still want or need a mixer, they should be getting pretty cheap now that almost everyone must have one.

CUSTOMHOUSE SHOP FITOUTS
Closes today
If you are opening or refreshing a shop, there’s heaps of semi-nice retail display units here from the old DFS galleria in the Customhouse.

4X UP/DOWN LIGHTS
Closes today, Current bid $60
I read somewhere that Mariah Carey will not enter a room without indirect lighting so probably a good idea to get these and have them installed just in case.

By Simon

FRIDAY 20TH

ZAC LANGDON-POLE, CATERPILLAR SOUP
Lett Thomas, Free
I’m not normally a sucker for jigsaw puzzle work, but I am having a hard time looking away from the one they have used for the lead image of this show. NOTE: Lett Thomas is Michael Lett gallery but renamed to acknowledge gallery partner Andrew Thomas. NOTE #2: The Anto Yeldezian opening next door at Coastal Signs that we had in last week’s newsletter is now on at the same time as this one.

WHITE FERNS + BLACK CAPS v SOUTH AFRICA
Eden Park, From $38
Double header T20. It’s Autumn. Who is responsible for this. There’s been barely any home internationals all summer and there’s still no public plans for a test venue in the city. Showers are forecast by the way – a huge shock that no one could have seen coming. Between these guys and the geniuses at NZR it’ll be a miracle if we have any international sport at all in ten years.

LOU’ANA
The Hollywood, $55
Album release tour for Lou’ana’s second album, Disco Witch, at the Hollywood.

WOLTERS & PRIZEFIGHT
Neck of the Woods, $35
Australian club DJs with apparently nothing at all to do with the Walters Prize but such a strange coincidence to have those finalists announced on the same week. Support from Louis V and MILLIONDOLLARBIBI.

TOUCH ME
In Cinemas
"Two codependent best friends become addicted to the heroin-like touch of an alien narcissist who may or may not be trying to take over the world." Amazing blurb. No notes.

SATURDAY 21ST

PARADOX PRINCESS
Geinhinkan, $15
A night of experimental trans rap and more with guests Jackaltheblackal, Raru and Flowerstream, who are a duo that play drums and a Chinese zither called a Guzheng.

SUNDAY 22ND

RECORD RIOT
Whammy, Free
Afternoon vinyl fair with Alien Eye playing live at 3 and DJ Glue Ears before and after. 

MONDAY 23RD

SATANIC SURFERS
Whammy, $75
90s Swedish skate punks playing their first ever NZ show. Support from Cootie Cuties and Spit (from Dunedin).

TUESDAY 24TH

LES BIG BYRD
Double Whammy, $73
Renowned psychedelic rock trio from Sweden (more Swedes! coincidence? are they touring together? is it the same people?). Support from Sulphate. 

WEDNESDAY 25TH

BAIT
Prime Video
New series with fictional Riz Ahmed up for the role of James Bond. Hijinks and misunderstandings ensue.

THURSDAY 26TH

AMBIENT LIFE DRAWING WITH SUMMER KNIGHT
Goblin, $20
This regular life drawing event keeps going and growing – as well as the nude and the flowers, there is ANOTHER NUDE to work with. I’m assuming it’ll be of a different gender but who knows.

THE BETHS
Powerstation, $80
Album tour for the VERY well received Straight Line Was A Lie. NOTE: Friday’s show is sold out.

SEXISTENTIAL LISTENING PARTY
Whammy, From $10
Listening party for Robyn’s new album with Halfqueen and Zeki playing the songs. Free merch if you are early and lucky.