Brunch club meets brunch bust in liquor rules breach

Saturday, 12 July 2025

A Wellington restaurant has canned its boozy “bottomless brunch” events following complaints around excessive drinking.

It comes on the back of two inspections by council licensing officers to the Courtenay Place venue in the past month during similar packed-out events, and reports to police of trolleyed punters “staggering around CBDs” mid-morning.

Garden Hotel restaurant and bar owner Arjun Sharma told The Post he was slapped with a fine after allegedly breaching licensing rules which require a meal to be part of any promotion, alongside the alcohol component.

He had previously been warned not to advertise the events as bottomless and was urged to rein in the length of the three-hour plus“parties”.

Sharma said the events were organised by UK-base company The Brunch Club, which runs similar promotions around the world, and in Auckland and Christchurch.

“They are running the same brunch club in 47 countries. They never had a problem with the rules and regulations [until] they came to Wellington.”

Food service on the day of the most recent visit had been delayed due to staff sickness and the chef being under pressure to get 120-plus meals out at the same time.

“The food is not like fries and like small things that can come out within five minutes. They are big meals, they take time to serve.”

However while the club’s advertising states the cost of the brunches include a pre-ordered meal and 90 minutes of bottomless drinking, Sharma said Garden Hotel punters who had finished their meals and their “complimentary” four drinks had been able to buy more drinks from the bar if they wished.

“We’re just trying to make the city alive, to get people to come out and enjoy themselves.”

A council spokesperson said local authorities were legally required to ensure events involving alcohol adhered to the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012, which was designed to promote the safe and responsible sale, supply, and consumption of alcohol, while minimising the harm associated with excessive use.

It had made every attempt to work with event organisers “to find sensible solutions to enable the events to go ahead safely and legally”.

Inspector Ian Paulin, Alcohol Harm Prevention Manager, Community Partnerships and Prevention at Police National Headquarters said bottomless brunches were “an issue” nationwide.

“Stock-piling”, and sculling of drinks was a particular problem.

“While the concept may appear to be harmless, we have had reports of patrons staggering around CBDs mid-morning on the weekends having just attended a bottomless brunch.”

Given there were 67 local authorities in New Zealand, there was a wide variation of approaches and solutions to issues of alcohol harm, and the way the brunches were regulated, he said.

A crackdown on the free-for-all drink component of the popular weekend activity in the capital in 2021 saw bottomless brunches deemed a “clear breach” of liquor licensing laws, with venues encouraged to implement a four-drink limit through the use of coupons or tokens.

Local operators say that since then the bottom has fallen out of the bottomless brunches — where punters are offered a meal and drinks at a set price for a specified period of time — although some venues offer comparable deals, albeit without referring to them as such.

Newtown’s Bebemos, for instance, has a “Boundless Brunch”- a meal plus mimosas or tap lager for $65, or with cocktails $85. Otto Champagneria and Beer Hall in Featherston St has $65 weekend Boujee Brunches, which includes brunch and bottomless drinks, while The Arborist’s $39 “brunch package” has a two-drink restriction. Flamingo Joe’s advertises a Saturday Flock to Brunch deal; any menu item plus three “bartails” for $49.

In Christchurch Fiddlesticks restaurant does a bottomless lunch. It’s $85 Long Lunch includes five premium cocktails. Holey Moley Viaduct offers its Auckland punters “a guaranteed showstopper for your next midday boozy bash” in the form of bottomless drinks, unlimited fries, a duo of tacos and unlimited mini golf for $59.

Andrew Williams, chief operating officer at Star Group, the outfit behind Flamingo Joe’s, Loosies, Coene’s, Huxley’s, and Foxglove, said while it had previously run successful bottomless brunch sittings in Wellington, and still does in other North Island regions, it had struggled with the inconsistency of the Wellington agencies’ approach to the events.

At one stage last year they were told they could run the brunches on a drink limit of 'one standard drink per hour per person', but in May that became two drinks an hour.

“I still believe it is one of the most responsible promotion/events you can run,” Williams said, noting the controlled environment where continuous food was available, people were seated and served at the table and only served one drink at a time, meant punters were less likely to get smashed.

Christchurch City Council's head of regulatory compliance, Tracey Weston, said no licensed premises that had bottomless brunch promotions in that city had been required to change or have changes made to alcohol licence conditions.

However she reiterated licensed premises running them had a responsibility to ensure they met the objectives of the Act.

In Auckland council alcohol licensing officers pro-actively inspect and monitor licensed premises as well as responding to public complaints of irresponsible or heavy drinking, Mervyn Chetty, licensing and environmental health manager, said.

While the council was aware of bottomless brunch events it did not maintain a comprehensive register of venues offering them. There was currently no enforcement action underway in relation to the promotions.

Paul Wong owns Auckland restaurant Jungle 8. It holds “bottomless brunch” events every Saturday, where guests get to choose four tapas dishes off the menu, alongside a selection of cocktails, house beers and wine, and non-alcoholic options.

A close eye is kept on how much people are drinking and if anyone in a group doesn’t have a valid ID or is under 18 no-one in the group is served alcohol. A glass-swap system means diners can only have one drink at a time.

“We’re very mindful about how we run our bottomless brunch. For us, it’s just as much about enjoying great food as it is about the drinks.

“Our staff are trained to monitor tables throughout the session, if someone starts showing signs they’ve had a bit too much, the manager will check in.

“We usually remind them of the rules and encourage them to eat something — most people come for the food just as much as the drinks anyway. If needed, we’ll slow things down or pause service altogether,” Wong said.

Each session runs for two hours, with last drinks called 30 minutes before the end.

Plans to open a Jungle 8 restaurant in Wellington in the former Establishment building, do not include bottomless brunches, he said.

In 2023 a Kiwi couple successfully sued a restaurant after hitting the bottom of the bottomless brunch they paid $65 each for.

They were awarded a partial refund of $25 each after refusing to fork out extra for additional food, claiming conditions for the bottomless brunch didn’t specify the “bottomless” was for drinks only.

Meanwhile former Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman has been reported as taking to social media last week to bemoan the alleged “gross treatment” of a group she was with during a bottomless brunch at Karangahape Rd’s Atelier restaurant, when their booking was cancelled midway through.

However, Matt Gossett, co-owner of Atelier, told the NZ Herald Ghahraman’s own behaviour was lacking and the incident had made him question offering the eatery’s bottomless brunch into the future.

Paulin said guidelines around the brunches included that advertisements should not give the impression there was no limit to how much alcohol could be consumed, a meal must be part of the promotion (food, not alcohol, should be the bottomless part), the duration of a brunch should be between 90 -120 minutes and that customers should be served only one drink per at a time.

“As long as a licensed premises works within the guidelines, then everyone can have a fun time and remain safe.”