21/02/2024
It is with great sadness that Everybody’s & Roxy was forced to close their doors permanently yesterday (20 Feb).
Although it will not be a surprise to anyone who understands how tough trading conditions have been for the hospitality world for the past 4 years, it was still a shock to us.
We had been fighting so hard to make what we were doing better, despite all the headwinds, however, yesterday those winds blew us over.
Everybody's and Roxy have been a fixture in downtown Auckland for over 12 years. When we built our place, people asked why we were putting our business in such a challenging part of downtown Auckland. We could never answer them that well, except to say that we wanted to bring something that felt truly international to Auckland, like the fancy places in fancy cities we visited, or actually more likely, the beautiful bars we saw in movies… we wanted to do something cinematic, with scale and drama.
And we got our wish.
There have been incredible highs and lows for this business. The highs came from the amazing customers over the years, and the incredible people involved all the way through…this is the joy of serving people and creating memories
The lows however were just as frequent. The challenge initially of creating a business of intent and quality in an area of downtown Auckland that was considered low-rent We battled through though, and edged out our own little oasis here over time.
But then Covid and the lockdowns hit and while the support and the good periods of sales between the lockdowns helped, the depopulation of the city was almost fatal for us.
Losing our lifeblood of office workers, function goers, tourists and visitors starved the city of its oxygen, and only the disenfranchised, homeless, gangs, and 501-deportees with nowhere else to go remained.
The barren landscape was then filled with violence, pushing the younger generations to avoid the city, and the late-night trade, which was our bastion, became an anchor dragging further into the sea.
Sites around us closed, we had a flood that damaged us in early 2022 (and forced our lower neighbour, Jefferson, to closedown), and then the floods and cyclone Gabriel damaged us and the city irrevocably. The recession then hit and a cost of living crisis in which every dollar spent was rightfully being looked at by worried customers.
While the last few sunny months have shown some promise for the city that we love, in hindsight the die was cast for us some time ago.
We are so proud our our amazing team who always strove to innovate and make what we do better, right up until the doors closed - we were always optimistic and never really lost hope that we could see the next challenge through.
Many of our team are working now without being paid to tidy things up as best we can. We are so gutted that this liquidation process doesn't allow for an orderly wind down for our staff, for our suppliers, and for our customers.
It’s with much sadness and a heavy heart that we have to say goodbye to our community of customers, our DJ’s and our team who we have shared so much with… it’s hard to articulate the sorrow that this situation brings.
But that is how life works out sometimes. Or many times, in the case of those who call Auckland home over the last 4 years.
We are proud of what we have done, and we have loved looking after so many of you over this last decade. So here’s one final cheers from us,,, please keep dancing, keep socializing, and keep bringing life to this little city.
Everybody's and Roxy x
