Publican breathes new life into historic building

The founder of Inkster Company knows how to turn old civic and commercial buildings into buzzing venues, and now he’s bringing his love for heritage and putting on a good time north.

The Nelson building that has cycled through a number of reinventions as a bar and restaurant, including 623 and the Buxton, will reopen as Fannys Nelson, with a target opening date of late October.

Inkster says he has been playing with the idea of expanding his pub empire into Queenstown for some time. So, why Nelson?

The building called, and the landlord made a persuasive case, he says. The long-time owner with publican know-how approached him, pitched the site, and pointed at the potential.

Fannys’ name continues Inkster’s habit of threading local history into the brand. He’s riffing on the man the city is named after, Admiral Lord Nelson, and his wife Frances “Fanny” Nelson.

“I’m all about old buildings, and Nelson’s got so much history. It’s crazy. And this one has just got such good bones. It’s been a great pub back in the day.”

His business partners, brothers Andrew and Richard Norton, own a couple of venues within the wider Inkster Company group and bought in five years ago. “One of us will be here in Nelson every week,” Inkster says.

The Nortons bring a wealth of hospitality experience owning Speight’s Ale houses and Sol Square in Christchurch before the earthquakes.

Inkster points to the laneway running alongside the building, between Hardy St and the Buxton carpark.

“There was once a bank right there, which is why it’s Old Bank Lane.” He toyed with the idea of calling the venue PTO, short for Public Trust Office, a nod to the matriarch of his eight Christchurch venues, the OGB.

That pub is housed in the Old Government Building just steps from the ruined cathedral and is now one of Christchurch’s thriving bars. It’s also one of the city’s few surviving Edwardian structures, having withstood both the 2011 earthquake and the sweeping demolitions that followed.

“And then I was like, oh, what about Lord Nelson? What’s his wife’s name? Frances Nelson. So I was like, let’s play on this.”

Central Nelson is sprinkled with street names connected to Nelson’s naval career (Hardy, Collingwood and Trafalgar Sts) and Fannys plays with the other half of the story. She married Nelson in 1787 and endured long absences and a very public estrangement once Emma, Lady Hamilton, entered the picture.

Frances and Horatio Nelson had no children together; Emma Hamilton later bore Nelson’s daughter, Horatia. While Emma is the better-known romantic figure in popular culture (Hotel Nelson once had a Lady Hamilton lounge bar) the name Fannys tilts the spotlight back toward the lawful wife who, as Inkster puts it, “had the rough end of the stick.”

In Christchurch, Inskter also owns The Church Pub, a former Trinity Congregational Church. Paddy McNaughton’s Irish Pub was named after an Irish convict who married a Māori princess before becoming a whaler in Kaikōura.

Then there’s the 50-capacity Austin Club, a low-ceiling, basement nightclub designed to replicate post-war parties. Lyttleton’s Civil & Naval is a bar squeezed into an historic tailors.Their most recent do-up is of the Prebbleton Hotel.

He describes his venues as “stylish pubs”.

Work began at Fannys in April. Inkster gestures to the the brick wall behind the bar, currently painted black, but soon to be covered from ceiling to floor by a bronze velvet curtain.

“We repainted it all, made it bright again, because I think they tried to make it a nightclub.” There’s talk of an old brass till with crank keys; of gramophones and copper finishings.

Inkster laughs when asked if he’s going to rip out the old-style pub carpet. He’s just had it installed, after buying it new.

“It’s an Arkminster, the original pub carpet from the UK. I love all this old stuff.”

One of the head-turning additions to Fannys will be Inkster’s 70 kilogram leonberger dog, Sir Winston, a popular fixture in the OGB and Church Pub courtyards.

Inskter arrived in hospitality by way of earthquakes and a carpenter’s eye. Offered a brewing apprenticeship at the age of 17, he opted instead for a career in construction. While building in Western Australia, the Canterbury quakes struck and he was drawn home to begin salvaging and reimagining spaces in a boarded-up, post-quake city.

The impulse goes back further. Inkster harboured dreams of bar ownership ever since he and his twin brother bought a house together in New Brighton as a pair of 20-year-olds and built a bar in the backyard, complete with beer taps and bands. He says they knew how to host a good party.

“I always had that in me,” he says. Before their father died in 2013, he offered Inkster advice that became a directive: “You should just build your own proper bar one day. And do it properly.”

At age 31, the OGB became the proof of concept. More venues followed as he refined the template: choose a character building, restore it, give people what they want, and put strong operators on the floor.

That last clause is critical, he says. Fannys will be led day-to-day by manager Matt Bygate, a local face in the room with a reputation of running popular venues in the South Island and abroad. Across the group, about 130 staff are supported by a head office handling HR, operations, marketing, functions, accounts and payroll.

Details are part of the house style: uniforms that borrow from the classic pub workwear – cheese-cutter caps and suspenders. Inkster says he’s a “big fan of uniforms”. The food brief is elevated pub fare, while the bar keeps a backbone of familiar pours and reserves space for local brewers.

“We’ve got one free tap, which will rotate with all local craft beers,” he says. “We’re going to launch with Acoustic Brewery first, because they’re quite connected to live music scene here.”

Music is presented as an anchor. Inkster intends to programme live sets seven nights a week and, where possible, collaborate with other venues to create a predictable circuit for audiences and working artists, connecting with the local music scene and other bars.

There is talk, too, of pokies — and of doing them differently. He calls it making them “grubby cool” again. He’s put machines into some Christchurch venues without letting them define the vibe.

The aim in Nelson is the same: keep the room beautiful and the offer grown-up, so the clientele self-selects. “There’s so many couples that are retirees that want to have a flutter on the poker machine with a glass of wine,” he says.

The call to revitalise Nelson’s inner city has gathered momentum in recent years, but Inkster stresses he isn’t arriving to reinvent the CBD so much as to add weight to it.

Nelson’s job market has taken a number of hits recently and Inkster argues the timing is right to help give the city a lift.

“We’re not coming into town with egos. We just love hospitality. We want to bring what we do in Christchurch, which we believe is a winning formula,” he says.