THE LUCK OF THE IRISH

One of our favourite Wellington publicans is due to become a dad. Dermot Murphy is as Irish as you can get and we were well entertained by his Irish lilt today at lunch. Now he is quite excited by the prospect of becoming a father. However he is even more excited by the prospect that his baby is due to be born on St Patricks Day.

Dermot is the owner of D4, the Establishment and Chicago. And it seems that Chicago is one of the waterfront venues which we be a " place to be" come the Rugby World Cup.

Dermot is young, works hard and knows the hospitality trade well. He is the type of young entrepreneur we need more of in NZ.

Interestingly we were talking to another Restaurateur today who is a little sceptical of the increase in trade that the Rugby World Cup is expected to bring.

While the Wellington waterfront bars did a roaring trade on the back of the Rugby Sevens the top end bars did not fair so well. Seems pies and chips are the order of the day for the young rugby crowd. So there is some concern that the RWC spin off may largely be limited to some big bars.

We hope that is not the case and there is a vast difference between the Rugby sevens - youngish crowd and the Rugby Union fans. We remember the Lions tour and there was a huge range of people from those who toured the country in Helicopters to the Welsh village postie we met who saved five years to visit NZ and was pretty much limiting his eating and drinking spend to $50 a day.

So we are hopeful that there will be enough fans who like fine dining to keep the Wellington restaurants rocking during the tournament.

Bring it on.