By now the whispers should have reached you that Chris Priestley is returning to his proper place on Ponsonby Road, behind the bar at One2one.
“We take over on 28 November and will probably be shut for a week or so. We’re going to move the bar back a little bit, rebuild the kitchen, redo the ceiling, there’s plenty of things to do," Chris tells me over a coffee at, where else? One2one.
Claire and he are most excited to get back into the cafe and restore that feeling and place that has always been associated with Chris, from way back with Java Jive through to the early incarnations of Atomic Cafe. With their family supporting them, it’s going to become a very friendly, welcoming and inclusive place, “It’s going to be that sort of place, we’ll look after everybody and then everybody looks after us type of thing.”
Claire has just completed a diploma in small business, “My initial plan was to start my own espresso bar and I was thinking of going mobile and doing markets, but Chris and I were at a practice one night and he mentioned the One2one idea.” The lights came on and the two of them made things happen. “It was just the perfect time for everyone.”
Music has been going strong since Chris left seven years ago, and has still been present on Thursdays and Fridays even since Chris left again last year to take up a full time job at Corelli’s Cafe in Devonport. But Claire and Chris are looking forward to using their combined musical contacts to revitalise and return the music evenings to their former glory.
“The Thursday nights are still rocking, and we’re going to look after the musicians a bit better. I can get in touch with some of the really good ones that have come in the past and start inviting them in, and maybe the first couple of hours could be a bit more organized and then maybe more of a jam at the end and a bit of a sit round the table at the beginning. We both have a huge array of friends to call on. Get it back to what it used to be,” Chris says.
“We want to change it up a bit, and have something a bit different each week,” Claire says. She plays harp and has been a regular performer in the folk scene for many years. Her family play a big part in organising the Auckland Folk Festival every year and have great relationships with Celtic, Irish and Scottish music worldwide.
Friday jazz nights feature Peter Wood and whoever turns up, and a once a month reading and poetry night with Anita is still going strong, plus the Young Musicians Club is thriving. Chris isn’t sure where to fit an open mic into the programme, as they can be hard to run and make work. “I like the sessions in Nashville, where they get four or five songwriters sitting around a table, and they’ll each have a turn and the others harmonise with them.”
One of the big talking points for Claire is creating a venue that is inclusive to all ages, “I find a lot of the music venues are restricted age group, which means a lot of the younger people can’t come anyway. It will be very nice to create something that is more inclusive, it will certainly be a different environment to the Irish pubs that I have frequented.”
There are many cafes in town, and many bars, but not that many have the musical connections or the history in the folk scene that Claire and Chris do. With support from their families, and many of the stalwarts of the old Atomic Cafe and One2one days, there’s little doubt that One2one will take off again and that music nights will become the place to be.
Chris will be back upstairs as the caretaker, lighting the fires at the early hours of the morning. With a new menu, a new bar and selection of drinks the cafe will be undertaking a small but exciting facelift before the reopen. Claire and Chris will be taking turns running the front of house, open seven days and four nights at least a week. Back open in time for the Christmas lights, there will definitely be a reopening party, with music of course. (FINN MCLENNAN-ELLIOTT)
One2one’s reopening party is scheduled for Saturday 10 December from 3pm till close. Check back with the cafe in the early days of December for more details!