The new hospitality precinct launch in Christchurch’s Strange’s Lane 2014, has seen the food and drinks flowing with the crowds. For a city starving for sophisticated night-time destinations, this new arrival is absolutely perfect!
After the old building was demolished post-earthquake there was a growing sense of anticipation over the Manchester/Lichfield/ High Street corner site. Now with the opening of the building and the debut of hospitality destination, Strange’s Lane is truly pumping. Patrons have the choice of three distinctive venues.
Three the merrier
Between the Strange and Co, Lower 9th Diner and Orleans, the menus range from Alaskan crab to chicken waffles, all serviced from a central kitchen. Each serves a different market: Lower 9th Diner is open early for coffee, Orleans for lunch and dinner and Strange and Co the late afternoon. The restaurant group is owned by Auckland’s Britomart Hospitality Group. They have a great history in the area because they also previously run the popular bar Cartel across the road from what is now Strange’s Lane.
The new development is reminiscent of the now-gone Poplar Lane precinct. With each of the venues collected around a cozy central courtyard. All three combine to deliver an approximate capacity of 250. This makes the experience diverse, sophisticated and intimate for patrons. There was great thought put into the design, menus and overall experience, the popularity of the precinct has been eye-opening.
The reason for a Strange name
Indeed, the success of this has at times been too much, Strange’s Lane making front-page news for being “too popular”. There such high demand, the nightspot has had to install entry restrictions to deal with the long queues at times. The appeal of the precinct will be no flash in the pan, but why the name?
At the turn of last century the site originally housed Strange’s department store – at one time one of the largest such stores in Australasia. Now, with the new development, the success of the hospitality destination is anything but strange.
In the kitchen
The Blue Seal Evolution Series was installed in the Strange’s Lane precinct. This choice was made for a few main reasons: the easy-use functionality, hardwearing reliability and locally made technology and products. The hardware installed was a 6 burner gas convection oven range, a gas chargrill, gas griddle oven range and twin pan fryers. Between them, this technology provides a wide range of applications to cover the wide range of cuisine available at Strange’s Project
