Yes, that’s right – Havana Coffee, home to some of the best roasted beans and some of the choicest cuts of real estate too. The guys at Havana seem to have a handle on all their senses: a feel for what makes a great bar, a good eye for catchy graphics, a fine nose for roasting, and an ear out for some choice sites. Here’s three that we know of. 

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First up is the original, the former roasting shop in Wigan St, composed of two little dwellings that are now home to a good bar. While the street used to be full of a whole line of these little love shacks, it’s just a continuation of the low rent architecture that used to fill Haining St as well in its previous incantation as a China Town opium den. Long may these two shacks continue to thrive, and the bars within them. They’ve survived a building by the School of Design next door, and a planking by the Wellingtonian – they can survive a lot longer I’m sure.

If you were to wander from Wigan, along Haining, you’ll get to Tory St and Francis Place, with the new home of Havana’s roasting business. A fine old Studebaker truck outside, former ‘Childs Livestock’ farming logo only partially painted out, and an array of roasting equipment behind the upstairs windows in a luridly green Deco building, there’s a rumour going round that the whole Havana Bar will also be moving to Francis Place. Say it ain’t so Joe!

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But there is a third great Havana site, although this one may belong more to the Havana Cruising Club, if there is such a thing. Over the hill by the edge of the sea in Evans Bay, there’s a jaunty boatshed with a catchy tarpaulin, and rail tracks leading up from the sea into the shed. Could it be that like Batman, the boys from Havana have a hidden bat boat ready to spring fully fledged from the Batshed? Or are the Havana hombres due to launch a new water-based coffee provisions to service the boaties? Tune in next week, same Bat time, same Bat channel….

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