Love your local - the Last Place for a decent bite in late-night Hamilton

Friday, 23 June 2023

Partner and general manager of Last Place bar in Hamilton John Moughan has learned a lot about hosting music bands in the last couple of years.

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Eight days before lockdown was unfortunate timing to open a hospitality venue in Hamilton.

But Last Place bar has bounced back as the masses jam two years of scuttled Covid-19 events in the last one.

The Last Place – a venue described as a blending of a New York-style dive bar and a 1980s-era RSA – reopened its doors in mid-November 2021 after shutting them for nearly four months.

But again, the first six months since opening were a “bit of a blur” for co-owner John Moughan.

They still couldn’t host a full-house gig, he said.

“A bunch of stuff didn't happen for pretty much two years.

“And then the last year has been just crazy, like international acts and people trying to jam two years of stuff into 18 months.”

The bar attracted patrons looking for food, drinks and music, and musicians alike.

The Last Place bar had to temporarily shut only eight days after its grand opening in 2021.

Many shows have been sold out or close to it, Moughan said.

Moughan said while the business stemmed from the idea of “a cool bar and cool place where we’d like to hang out”, it had become a go-to for many people who work till late.

“We certainly get a bunch of people from other restaurants or bars that close a bit earlier… people who work till late can come in at 1 or 2am and have food.

“There are not many places in Hamilton where you can actually get food, like a meal after 10pm.”

The biggest lesson for Moughan since the inception of Last Place had been in the field of music.

“I came from no live music experience to working out how to host bands with different music knowledge bases.

“We had much more experience in hospitality than the live music side.

“So that side was a challenge but it seems it is going pretty well now.”

Moughan and his partners had worked and been in hospitality long enough to know that wasn’t glamorous, he said.

“So it has gone about as expected.

“And what you don’t know, you learn it.”