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Speaker 1: A new survey, as I was telling you, is found

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Speaker 1: that Auckland restaurants close earlier than anywhere else in the world.

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Speaker 1: International food magazine Chef's Pencil looked at four four hundred

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Speaker 1: restaurants in eighty nine cities around the world and worked

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Speaker 1: out the medium medium time for the last seating in

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Speaker 1: each of these cities. In Auckland it's half past eight.

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Speaker 1: It's the earliest time of any city in the survey.

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Speaker 1: Nicola Waldron is the general manager of the Restaurant Association. Hey,

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Speaker 1: Nikola Cura, why are we like this?

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think there's lots of different reasons

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Speaker 2: why people may decide to eat early. You know, it's

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Speaker 2: a good time if you've got a young family, maybe

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Speaker 2: catching a bite after work with some friends. I think,

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Speaker 2: you know, also Auckland, the spread out nature of Auckland

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Speaker 2: sort of probably plays a bit of a part as well,

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Speaker 2: so you might have to drive home afterwards. So there's

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Speaker 2: lots of different reasons I think that play into this.

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Speaker 1: But I sort of had I'd wondered if it was

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Speaker 1: the children thing as well, But not everybody is a parent,

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Speaker 1: right and even if you become a parent, we're leaving

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Speaker 1: it later in life. So surely there's a quorum of

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Speaker 1: people out there who want to have a few drinks

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Speaker 1: and then go out for dinner a bit later. Is

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Speaker 1: it maybe a hangover? Have we just got into a

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Speaker 1: pattern because we're an old farming country.

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Speaker 2: Look, I think dining early has probably always had its

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Speaker 2: place in New Zealand, but we do need early diners

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Speaker 2: to help restaurants to spread out the flow of customers

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Speaker 2: over the night. You know, otherwise we're all traditionally going

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Speaker 2: out at seven or seven thirty. So you know, those

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Speaker 2: early diners will maybe kind of come in early, have

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Speaker 2: a quick meal, and then that allows them to take

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Speaker 2: advantage perhaps of a quieter dining environment. They don't have

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Speaker 2: to wait for a table but then that table is

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Speaker 2: freed up again for customers to come in that those

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Speaker 2: traditionally peak time. So I think they've got a good place.

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Speaker 1: Well do tourists find us dull?

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Speaker 2: I don't think that we're dull. I think we've got

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Speaker 2: a really.

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Speaker 1: Come on, Okay, stop it out now, you're going overboard

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Speaker 1: now trying to put a good spin on this. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you're in Cairo and you're eating at midnight and

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Speaker 1: then you come to New Zealand and we stop taking

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Speaker 1: orders at half past eight. That's pretty boring, do you know.

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Speaker 2: I think that the visiting tourists actually do have play

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Speaker 2: a good bit of influence on our dining patterns as well,

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Speaker 2: because they do traditionally eat later than us. So, you know,

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Speaker 2: in those peak tourist times and we've got those international

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Speaker 2: tourists coming in, then we might see them typically eating

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Speaker 2: later than our domestic customers. But again that is a

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Speaker 2: good thing for our restaurants to help with the flow

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Speaker 2: across the evening.

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Speaker 1: Nicholas, thank you. I appreciate your time. It's Nicole A

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Speaker 1: Waldron Restaurant Association general manager. Hither it's because we're trying

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Speaker 1: to get home before the frigging roads come. This is true.

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Speaker 1: My mom lives in Pokakoe, which is down the motorway

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Speaker 1: from Auckland, and she's always saying she comes up to

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Speaker 1: visit me in Auckland, comes up to do whatever. I

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Speaker 1: don't know, and then she gets stuck by the bloody

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Speaker 1: motorway that's closed. That motorway has been closed since I

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Speaker 1: was at university. What the hell are they still doing

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Speaker 1: to it? I mean, geez, surely by now, the thing

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Speaker 1: should be bloody gold and like we should be going.

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Speaker 1: It's like an like the amount of work that's put

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Speaker 1: on this bloody thing should be like an Autobahn. But

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Speaker 1: it's not, is it anyway? So that's part of it.

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