Auckland’s Karangahape Road celebrates its sexual history with its first-ever restaurant month
Saturday, 13 July 2024
Auckland’s Karangahape Road, once known for its sinful side of strip clubs, sex shops and peep shows has transformed into one of the city’s best dining precincts.
The iconic street is celebrating its sexual past and the tenants of old with its first-ever restaurant month, “Eat It”.
Coco’s Cantina has been on K’ Road for 15 years, proving wrong those who said the street's reputation would be bad for business.
“People were wanting to give us lots of advice. They were worried that [sex and food] might not go hand in hand and work well for a hospitality business, but we didn't see it that way,” co-owner Renee Coulter told Stuff Travel.
“We felt that that actually gave Karangahape Road its anchor and some history and a point of difference.
“Before that was its only talking point and now people will talk about the cuisine, the restaurants, the art scene, the radio stations, how many tattoo parlours we have, the op shops. [Sex] is now just part of the conversation, whereas before, maybe it was the conversation.
In the 1960s the one-kilometre stretch became home to New Zealand’s Red Light industry with strip clubs such as the Pink Pussycat and the Las Vegas Striptease and Bar - the signage of which still adorns its former space.
In the 1970s it saw the establishment of New Zealand’s first lesbian club - KG Club.
It wasn’t a bar like you think of today, Sarah Buxton, director of the Charlotte Museum Trust which tells Aotearoa’s history of lesbianism, told Stuff Travel.
“It was sort of an incorporated social club because the women in the 1970s in New Zealand weren't allowed to have a liquor licence,” she said.
“They couldn't actually set up a bar per se, they had to set up a social club and then sell tickets that people had used to buy alcohol… They got raided by the police because they were actually selling liquor illegally.”
Buxton said K’ Road was “pretty rough” and it was dangerous for women to walk alone.
“A woman in the 70s walking up and down K’ Road on her own was automatically thought of as a sex worker, so therefore got that sort of attention.
“They would move in groups. Two or three or four people would come and go together to make sure everyone got home safe and then the cops would target them. They would get in their car and head home and the cops would pull them over and charge them with some sort of frivolous thing, like their tyres were too flat, because they knew that they were lesbians coming from the club.”
But it wasn't all bad, Buxton said.
“The local beat cop who used to walk K’ Road, he was obviously very aware that there was a lesbian club there. When they moved across the road into the basement of Saint Kevin's Arcade, he would come along in the night and close the big metal gates, to effectively lock them in, so that they were safe from any harassment or bother from any patrons who are up and down K’ Road. He sort of took care of them a bit.”
Open Late, a cafe-cum-wine bar chose to pour a one-off KG Club spritz for its restaurant month event.
“It feels like a real honour to be able to hold a place within a community that I really care about. Thank goodness time's moved on and that women can have their own licences now,” owner Christy Tennent told Stuff Travel.
Across the road, Peruvian restaurant Madame George has taken over the space of the former gay bar, Urge.
Owner Pablo Arrasco Paz used to live upstairs.
“One of the things that attracted me the most about K’ Road itself is the fact that everybody is welcome. There is lots of acceptance. I lived on K’ Road on and off for about 20 years so I've seen lots of changes. If anything it has changed for the better because people are more aware of our differences and what makes us more beautiful. It has retained its naughty side though,” he told Stuff Travel
Arrasco Paz chose to serve a seductive ceviche for his restaurant month dish.
“It’s a Peruvian signature dish but the connotation is that it’s served with leche de tigre and the legend goes that it turns you into a tiger. It's quite a playful dish that helps break the barriers once people come to Madame George. It's quite fun to see them going hard with the spoon on the leche de tigre or even sometimes just licking the bowl. It's quite naughty.”
Today, K’ Road has become more gentrified since its debaucherous heyday but remains home to the rainbow community and is known for putting on a show.
Caluzzi Cabaret’s drag acts have been doing that for nearly 30 years.
Its co-owner Nick Hall said the street’s underbelly looks different these days, but it’s not going anywhere.
“K' Road is the place where you can be a sex worker or you can be a drag queen or you can be a politician if you like, and we can all sit down and share a meal together.”
As Coulter said: “It's not Ponsonby, it's not part of the city, it's not Parnell, but we have got a great thing going here and you'll actually be spoilt for choice.”