Tyson Beckett pulls up a chair at the bar to witness the last hours of Peach Pit, the Karangahape Road nightlife institution.
Anyone who's lived or worked in Auckland Central will tell you that Peach Pit was a terrible place for a first date.
Despite the fact that multiple people I talked to over the last week described the favourite haunt as “unassuming”, you only needed to approach 352 Karangahape Road once to know that you couldn’t pop in undetected.
Walking in shortly after 5pm last Friday night, alongside various media editors (former and present) and Green Party MPs, I spotted three ex-colleagues, no less than four friends and two people I sort of hoped wouldn't see me.
For a certain subset of Aucklanders the bar felt like their chosen home. Some thought the space was intimidating, never making it past the swathes of tote bags gathered at the entrance to see the angular mural by painter Jeena Shin that traversed the long narrow space – the sign that read “I Hate Cheap Champagne”. hanging above a board advertising their $7 happy hour bubbles – or the graffiti etched into the loo roll holder that proclaimed, “Shawtys booty fat she perfect.”
In 2017 Lorde told Zane Lowe that Peach Pit was (along with the also now shuttered Golden Dawn) where she went to “step back” from life in the spotlight overseas and actually “live my life”.
Asked to provide a brief sermon in remembrance of the lost third place, Auckland Central MP and Karangahape stalwart Chlöe Swarbrick began, “Thank you Peach Pit for being a home away from home, a community lighthouse on Karangahape. You’re that friend who was always way too impressive, talented and fun yet totally aloof and chill. There really will never be another one like you.”
On Saturday December 3rd, I sat at the bar and watched as Auckland farewelled the venue that has been there for them for almost nine years.
5pm
I arrive just after the doors open at Peach Pit for the last time.
It's an extremely sunny Auckland evening, the kind that bathes Karangahape Road in a fuzzy golden light and promises a corker of a sunset come sundown. The two outside tables have already been snapped up and a handful of customers are dotted inside too. I recognise one table from being here last night.
I climb up on a stool at the bar, pull out a book and make myself comfortable. Anticipating a long night ahead, a waitress announces she's going to run across the road to Zambrero and grab a burrito. Another staff member writes up the specials on a blackboard that hangs above the pass.
5:10pm
A girl in her early twenties approaches the bar.
“Excuse me,” she opens. “I left my sunglasses on the table out front last night, are they here? They're a black pair, I really like them.”
“No, sorry,” the kind waitress counters, making a gesture to convey that they're not hidden away somewhere.
5:30pm
A regular walks in and orders a light beer. He's got a coffee table book underarm to gift to the bartender, and a kind exchange of words to offer owner and chef Lukrecya Craw.
“Last night,” he starts with a deep breath out. “Is it still special?” “Always,” Lukrecya responds.
He leaves not long afterwards, his beer mostly untouched. “He just bought that to be nice, didn't he?” the staff remark when they realise.
5:45pm
The first tequila shot of the night is ordered and the staff join in. “You're getting emotional,” they quip as they raise their glasses of Jose Cuervo. “No, you are.”
6pm
A woman walks in and stops to talk to some friends seated near the back before approaching the till. “I want to get some takeaway food.,” she starts. “I've never eaten here.”
She's politely told that it's their last night and they're too busy to accommodate a request.
“Ok,” she sighs, “maybe next time”, in a manner so dry that I'm not sure if she's joking or not.
6:10pm
A former staff member pulls out the first-aid kit and bandages up her finger before making herself a hot toddy.
6:15pm
As with the closure of any favourite haunt, Peach’s closing has been accompanied by a raft of, “But where will we go now” comments. As a pair of women pay their tab one says to the other, “I've called Beau but they said they're really busy and don't know if they will be able to seat us”.
6:30pm
Someone sticks their head round the door into the kitchen and asks Lukrecya, “Will I see you around?” “You will. You will.”
6:51pm
A woman leans right over the bar, angling her phone up to take a photo of the last specials board.
6:55pm
Two people in their late twenties come up to the bar to order a first round of drinks.
“Are you more into margaritas or espresso martinis?,” asks one. “I'm not really a cocktail person,” is the slightly hesitant reply.
“Ok don't talk to me!” the first jokes, a little uneasily.
7pm
A couple sit down at the bar next to me. She's wearing Adidas leggings, an old long sleeve All Blacks jersey and carrying a stuffed toy gorilla the size of a small toddler. “Where's Lukrecya?” she wonders, eyes scanning the room. “Probably in the kitchen doing amazing things.”
On Monday afternoon, asked about the legacy of the food and the people behind it, Diva Giles of Three Lamps’ Beau Wine Bar recounted that, “While we were finding our feet at Beau I was often asked about my favourite cuisine, I would always reply ‘is Peach Pit a cuisine?’ I truly feel like it is.
“Lukrecya, Owen and their team created a space that was about community and banging flavours and now, lasting memories. For me Peach Pit is an unforgettable cuisine.”
7:08pm
“Did you have 10 bubbles?” the waitress asks that table of people who were also here last night, as they come to settle their bill shortly after happy hour ends.
“We did,” they reply. “Outrageous right.”
7:26pm
As they return to their table, I hear a woman telling her younger companion, “My mother used to lie about her age, I lie about my height”.
The night before a relative, while trying to figure out how much he’d spent on glasses of $7 glasses of bubbles over the last eight years, told me, “I feel like the crowd here has gotten older, but I’ve gotten older too.”
7:33pm
After a slower start, the bar is really starting to fill up. In a spare moment a bartender drags the first full recycling bin of the evening out back to be emptied.
7:50pm
“Ding, ding, ding, ding,” someone hollers out, mimicking cutlery hitting a glass.
A procession of arty patrons, led by sculptor Judy Darragh, make their way towards the kitchen with a big bunch of flowers and a trophy for Lukrecya. The room erupts into a ripple of applause and cheers as they pass.
“Speech, speech,” someone bellows. After a quick hug, Lukrecya dodges the request by quickly retreating back into the safety of the kitchen.
“I've been coming here since the start,” Darragh tells me. “It's also really been about the art world.
“Where will we go now? Who knows, maybe next door? Maybe someone else will come in with some new energy?”
“Someone cashed up?” offers a man at the bar. “Someone cashed up... Not us!”
8:23pm
The first glass of the night is broken. Now that the $7 happy hour bubbles are off the menu, people are reaching for full bottles, and those are a finite resource too.
“Are you just running out of everything?” someone questions when told there's no more Tempranillo.
“That's the idea…” the bartender counters.
“Drink the bar dry!” another regular quips.
8:42pm
The Eftpos machine is down because the charger “has finally called it”. Lured out from the kitchen to investigate, Lukrecya jokes that maybe this is the end, before they figure out that the UE boom has the same charger plug.
8:46pm
“SORRY!” waitress Jess calls across the restaurant floor, moments after opening a bottle of bubbles the vessel slips out of her hands and hits the floor. The fizzy spray shoots up and douses a pair sitting two tables away.
8:54pm
Longtime staff member Owen arrives on site and is immediately handed a broom to sweep up shards of glass as a customer jokes, “I can say I broke the last glass at Peach Pit!”
9:45pm
With staff members present and past filtering in and convening around the narrow bar, I move to a table tucked against the wall.
10 or so minutes later, as the cork has popped on the last bottle of “giggle juice”, Owen comes around to let everyone know, “we're doing last call now and then getting people to move to Soap [who are hosting the after party] at about 10:30.”
10:33pm
Lukrecya is leaning over the pass, glass of wine in hand, as we make a timely exit out of the bar for the final time. The last thing you want is to outstay your welcome. Not that there was a risk of that for Peach Pit in the eyes of Auckland's punters.
