137 Victoria Street West
Freemans Bay, Auckland 1010
+64 (09)373.4389
Parking: Street Parking or Public Parking lot for $3 NZD per hour
Monday-Friday, 5-7pm, $5 NZD house wine & spirits, $5.50 NZD draft pints
If you know anything about New Zealand, you know of the beautiful hills & valleys. The hills are alive in the city of the Auckland! It didn’t take long to grow tired of walking up and down and up and down hills. Yes, my legs may be thankful for it, but sometimes you just want some flat land. That’s how we ended up at Empire Tavern.
Empire Tavern was ever so conveniently located across the street from our hotel. We liked the look of it because it reminded us of a gastropub that we might find back in the states. Empire Tavern advertises all types of activities: game night, pool games, live music, but no happy hour. Well, guess what? They do have happy hour!
For $5 you can score house wine or house spirits, known to us in the states as well drinks. As usual, I went for a glass of red wine. The wine was mighty tasty for house wine. In fact, with most New Zealand bars, the wine was always fresh and tasty, never sour. Bars in the states could learn a thing or two about keeping fresh
bottles of wine around.
Empire Tavern did not offer any deals on food. However, we had no complaints there since the starters were priced from $6.50 - $12.00. We snacked on the Texas Nachos, Tiger Prawns & Calamari, & Bread & Dips. My favorite was the Texas Nachos. Perhaps, because loaded nachos were a taste of home.
The crowd at Empire Tavern was pretty diverse. It appeared that plenty of people were groups of coworkers. Everyone was of different ages, different jobs as some were in suits and other very casual, and all kiwis. We were the only Americans, but we did fit in even though we did stand out with, according to locals, our exotic accents.
Rating: 4 Martinis
Just found this blog (yay twitter!) and just saw your latest post and saw you do out of town posts as well, and since i lived in NZ for 2 years, had to search it out!
ReplyDeletesince i worked across the street at the 'Zed while living in AKL, i practically lived at The Empire! i am sure you ran into some of the old co-workers as i couldn't come here and NOT run into someone i knew! ahh, memories! glad you had a great time at my home away from home!