Restaurateur roasts city rivals’ clientele
High profile restaurant owner Leo Molloy has caused a stir describing rival restaurants as hangouts for “old white people”, “girls with flappy lips” and “young mums in active wear with screaming babies”.
The owner of Auckland pop-up venue HeadQuarters posted the lengthy description on his restaurant’s Facebook page after its nomination in hospitality awards The Lewishams.
The post, to encourage patrons to vote in the awards, mentioned Soul Bar, Prego and Apero on K’Rd — which were also nominated for the Outstanding Establishment award.
“The other nominees are Soul, that place where the old white people hang out with girls with flappy lips, sugar daddies, & car salesmen, some sugar daddies who are car salesmen, where they still serve salt and pepper squid with curry sauce, then there’s Prego, that’s that nursery for young mums in active wear with screaming babies in Ponsonby,” Molloy posted.
Without naming it, he described K’Rd eatery Apero as a place involving “failed comedians trying their luck as food critics, Ponsonby politicians . . .”
Replies varied from support for Molloy’s comments describing him as “a national treasure” to another describing the post as evidence “anyone over the age of 40 should have a licence to use social media”.
Molloy told the Weekend Herald the post was made to “get people talking and voting” and was “just a bit of a wind-up, a piss-take”.
“You can tell that it is just a joke, it’s a wind-up. You can tell by the title of my acceptance speech: no f ***s will be given.”
Asked about the clientele at HeadQuarters, Molloy said: “We are Auckland, we penetrate every sector of society, we don’t judge anyone unless they are behaving badly or intimidating.”
Prego general manager Brandon Lela’ulu laughed when asked if he was offended by Molloy’s post and didn’t think there was any malice intended.