Garage Project are opening two new venues in Wellington, including taking over the Fortune Favours taproom in Leeds Street.
Fortune Favours closed its doors for the last time on Sunday but the venue will continue as a craft beer destination, with Garage Project moving quickly to take over the space.
A day after announcing they were partnering with restaurateur Ben Bayly to revive the Wellington Pavilion in Oriental Bay, Garage Project posted today that were “incredibly excited to announce that Garage Project will be taking over the Fortune Favours brew bar on Leeds Street.
“Shannon, Dale and the team at Fortune Favours transformed one of Wellington’s original character buildings into one of the best spots to enjoy a beer in our city. Ironically, luck and a downturn in Wellington hospitality has not been on their side and they announced last week that they will be shutting their doors for the last time,” Garage Project said.
“It’s sad to see one of our brewers cease trading, but what they managed to create in the heart of Wellington is too good to be relegated to the scrap heap. This week we will begin working with Fortune Favours to take over the running of the brew pub and bring their employees into the GP team.
“We’re also incredibly excited to be joining the wider Leeds Street community. This precinct houses some of the most vibrant businesses, bars and restaurants in Wellington, including the iconic Golding’s Freedive, Mr Go’s, Shelly Bay Bakery, Hanging Ditch, Pomodoros and the Wellington Chocolate Factory. Times have been hard for all of Wellington’s venues, but we are committed to continuing the project of revitalising the inner city that these businesses have already begun.
“The doors of Fortune Favours shut on Sunday. When they open again, they will be opening onto a new chapter in the story of Garage Project. When they open we’ll be excited to share with you a new GP experience, and share simply one of the best places in our city to sit and enjoy a beer in the sun.”
Plans to transform the long‑dormant band rotunda at Oriental Bay into were unveiled on Tuesday.
The Watson Group revealed Bayly will lead the culinary vision, while Garage Project was announced as the exclusive beer partner.
“The Wellington Pavilion is one of the most iconic buildings in our city and having the chance to be part of its rebirth is an opportunity that’s simply too good to turn down,” GP said on Facebook.
“After sitting un-loved for too long, this project will transform this outstanding location into a building where everyone can enjoy Wellington’s very best.
“After spending time with Ben Bayly and his team, and seeing their unwavering commitment to creating fantastic food with the best local ingredients, we feel privileged to be part of this project.
“You can’t beat Wellington on a good day, and with this iconic building and alongside Ben’s amazing food, we promise to bring an unbeatable beer experience.
“The newly revitalised Wellington Pavilion will be a place to be proud of, a place for everyone, where we can all come together and make the most of this great city.
“Expect Wellington’s Pavilion to finally reopen in late 2026!”
Cost of living to blame says Thorpe
When Thorpe announced the decision to shut the popular, he specified the current economic climate — “the cost of living” — as the main reason.
Thorpe was adamant that a deal done in 2023 which saw Fortune Favours lose access to dozens of taps across the capital was not a factor, nor was losing Coca-Cola as a distributor.
Until 2023, Fortune Favours were majority-owned by Wellington hospitality company Kāpura. That business was taken over by DB Breweries (Heineken)-owned Star Hospitality, a newly formed body that also included bars and restaurants formerly operated by Auckland’s Joylab.
“The obvious thing that people see is the Heineken thing with Star Hospitality, or Coca-Cola pulling the pin, but that’s not the case.
“When Kāpura sold to Heineken, they adequately compensated us when that transaction happened, and we lost all those taps in the market, so that was all done in good faith, it was all. I don’t feel like I wasn’t ripped off — they did right by us.
“So, I definitely want to put this record straight there, it’s nothing to do with that, and same with the Coca-Cola thing. That decision to exit was made by their new European overlords, so it was totally out of the hands of the local Coca-Cola New Zealand team … and we’d already made the decision to retrench into a brewpub model.
“So, what it is, 100%, is the cost of living. Our business was 20% down last year, and 25% down the year before that, so 45% down in two years — there’s not many businesses that can sustain that.
“Everyone in the industry’s hurting at the moment, including big boys.
“And if I was to throw any blame out there, I’d say maybe the government could do a little bit more in terms of excise relief. We see what the government’s done in Australia with $350,000 rising to $400K worth of excise rebates, which just gives all these little breweries that leg up, and that’s the difference between making it or not.
“Even freezing excise for the next two years — it’s too late for me — but I’d love to put a message out there that hopefully maybe one of the powers above might read and go, `well, that actually could have saved them’.”
Thorpe said the well documented hospitality crisis in the capital was due to a combination of ongoing restructures in the public service and a fear of redundancies hanging over peopl.
”I reckon the fear of redundancy is actually worse than redundancy itself. I mean, if you’re scared you’re going to lose your job, what’s the first thing you do? You stop spending, you stop going out, and Wellington’s been in that pattern for the last two years.”
But Thorpe acknowledges he could have made some changes to the business more quickly.
”We’re not without fault ourselves. We’ve had our own challenges I was a bit too slow to react to. But being 45% down over two years — I’ve been in this game for a long time, and I’ve never heard of any numbers like that before.”
Cooper heading to Wairarapa
Fortune Favours co-owners and brewer Dale Cooper is packing up in Wellington and moving fulltime to the Wairarapa where he has landed a job brewing for the yet to be opened Horseshoe Tavern in Masterton. That trust-owned business opens next month and Cooper publicised the upcoming opening with his Wairarapa IPA, which was the top-rated at Beervana last week.
Cooper had been splitting his time between Wellington and the Wairarapa but is exiting the capital after a long career brewing there.
Thorpe said the decision to wind up the brewpub quickly was done to avoid a ”messy” situation down the line.
”We could have dug in for another six months and ended up in a position where there’s a long list unpaid bills and it could have got quite messy. We’re trying to be as graceful in our exit as possible, if that’s a word for it.”
After a quarter-century in the beer industry, Thorpe is uncertain about his future.
”I still love the industry, and I still love beer. That hasn’t changed. But, yeah, it’s a pretty challenging market, right? I’m not a publican, so I find myself in a position that all we’ve got left is a brew bar and. My role was very much managing those third-party relationships, the Coke relationships, the bStudio relationships, doing the marketing and stuff like that. So now that stuff’s gone away, I didn’t really have a role in the business anyway.
”Give me a month off to lick my wounds and then I’ll just see what’s out there. I’m sure some opportunity will come up. And despite everything that’s happened to me, I still do love Wellington and I’m pretty well entrenched down here with the family.
”So I do want to stay down here, but it’s a pretty tough job market so we’ll have to see what transpires.”