Bayly, who had a number of restaurants around the country including Ahi and Origine in Auckland, Aosta in Arrowtown and The Bathhouse in Queenstown, told RNZ he left the project in March.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, we simply couldn\u2019t reach commercial terms with the building developer, and we parted ways in March,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo say we are disappointed to withdraw from the project after a year of hard work, passion and energy is an understatement, however we wish the project and the future operators well, and look forward to [seeing] the building and venue flourish in the future, as the people of Wellington deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite leaving the project, Bayly said he would like to have a restaurant in Wellington one day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d love to open a place down there, I love the city, and it just wasn\u2019t to be this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement, Watson Group said: \u201cThe main change is that we were unable to reach final commercial terms with Ben Bayly and his team. That was disappointing, given the work invested by all parties, but it was a commercial decision. We remain on good terms and wish Ben and his team well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are now progressing discussions with alternative operators who are well suited to the building, the location, and the long-term vision for the Pavilion.\u201d<\/p>\n
It said the project timetable was being reviewed as part of the operator transition and final fit-out planning.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this stage, the intent remains to reopen the Pavilion in 2027, subject to finalising operator arrangements, fit-out scope and construction sequencing.\u201d<\/p>\n
It said \u201cnormal commercial and programme matters\u201d were being worked through, as with any heritage redevelopment of such scale.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur focus is unchanged: to restore and reopen this important Wellington building as a high-quality, public-facing venue that the city can be proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pavilion\u2019s beer partner Garage Project was still involved in the project.<\/p>\n
Garage Project co-founder Jos Ruffell said \u201cwork\u2019s progressing and [we are] hopeful that we\u2019ll be operational later this year. But yeah, hard to know if that\u2019ll actually happen or not, but we\u2019re always optimistic\u201d.<\/p>\n
Asked if any issues had come up, he said, \u201cNothing other than what you\u2019d expect on building projects.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it had been great collaborating with the Watson Group team.<\/p>\n
He said operators were \u201cheads down, working on it. I\u2019m excited to see it come and hopefully be in place for summer\u201d.<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bayly, who had a number of restaurants around the country including Ahi and Origine in Auckland, Aosta in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1561,169011,15361,16574,2220,169,156,80603,78,111,139,69,140540,3263,106487,2539,123723,218174,52],"class_list":["post-425436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bay","tag-bayly","tag-ben","tag-bill","tag-carter","tag-chef","tag-entertainment","tag-hickman","tag-in","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-oriental","tag-project","tag-quits","tag-restaurant","tag-rotunda","tag-sammy","tag-wellington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}