Spirits behind the bar
A bar that’s got its mojo back has two people at its helm, and a silent partner sitting on their shoulder.
Vesuvio has reopened its doors with a bigger footprint following a three-year hiatus, a death, and a hard slog of renovations done by co-owners Rachel Powderly and Jon Gregory, and they say the makeover is a tribute to Vesuvio’s founder, Matt Lingens.
Lingens, ‘‘a cheeky bastard’’ from Hamburg, Germany opened Vesuvio in 1992 when it was the ‘‘only bar on Oxford Tce for while’’, Gregory said.
People told him ‘‘no one’s going to go to that part of town to drink p...’’, he said, but they were wrong.
The bar survived and thrived on The Strip (now known as The Terrace) in its heyday before it went into hibernation in about 2007. It was resurrected about 2014 as a ‘‘hole in the wall’’ in Merivale, he said.
But more challenging times were ahead. The bar closed four days before lockdown forced all hospitality businesses to shut at the start of 2020.
It remained shut for the next three years getting an overhaul to expand the premises from its cosy bar to one which surrounds its courtyard – but during that time Lingens suddenly died in June 2021.
He saw the destruction, but he didn’t live to see the rebuild, Powderly said. ‘‘We worked very closely with Matt, so we had his vision.
We still have him on our shoulder.’’
The tapas bar is now bigger, but with some attention to detail, the essence of Vesuvio’s original site still exists.
Powderly said professionals who did the walls at the Oxford Tce bar 30 years ago taught her the technique to recreate the look at the renovated bar, which involved buffing and sanding four coats of wax.
And she didn’t stop there. Gregory said Powderly rolled up her sleeves in every aspect of the remodel, including bricklaying and wallpapering – ‘‘the girl behind the bar actually built the bar’’.
Vesuvio has replaced a mash-up of businesses that once overlooked the courtyard, including a sewing alterations shop, a stamp dealer, a Chinese restaurant, and a brothel. ‘‘It needed to be unified’’, Gregory said, ‘‘and probably some ghosts cast out here and there, but mostly only good spirits around here’’.
And Powderly agreed there were some ghosts casting shadows and making noise in the renovated bar. She said she ‘‘gives them a little nod’’ to tell them, ‘‘Yeh, I know you’re there, leave me alone’’.
A customer even had a reunion with a family member who had died, she said.
‘‘A woman at the bar saw her dad.’’
She said to Powderly, ‘‘You’re going to think I’m mad, but my dad is beside me.’’ No stranger to the spirits of the bar, Powderly just joked with her to ‘‘give him a drink’’.