This happy new year’s greeting is coming to you from the Wonderful World of Wellington, where I have just arrived for my annual dose of sunshine and perpetually youthful old people. Things have changed a great deal since a year ago, and over the coming two weeks I’ll bring you up to speed on all the new developments in Welly World.
Let me tell you about one of the first things to greet me with a shock and a muttered ‘WTF’ when I arrived late Tuesday evening. My route from the airport to my very welcome waiting bed (with a detour to Checkers for the kind of drive thru meal a jet lagged body truly doesn’t need) took me past The Players Club on South Shore. Well, folks, I have some bad news. The Players Club is GONE! I don’t mean physically gone, for the building is still there. But owner Neil Hirsch seems to have decided his restaurant/bar/table-dancing-let-your-hair-way-down-club needed re-branding. Neil, I beg to differ. I stopped actually eating at Players after my last overpriced, half-assed food and dreadful service dining experience a couple of years ago, but Players is an institution in this town, whether you love it, hate it, eat there or just party there into the wee hours on Sundays.
And what awesome new name did Neil choose for this mainstay of Wellington culture? The Coach House. How sexy. Hey guys, let’s go to the Coach House and get blasted! Doesn’t quite have the same cachet as hanging out at Players, does it?
The joint’s website reveals the dining room has had something of a makeover, or at least lots of those hanging drapes that are great for hiding water-stained ceiling tiles. The menu suggests a new chef in the kitchen, so perhaps there is an improvement on the dining side of things. And if there is, I can see Neil might have thought that he needed to re-name the place in order to tear away the mask of mediocrity the restaurant has worn these past years. But it’s still sad to know that there is no more place called Players. I wish Neil had given the restaurant its own name (perhaps something a bit more enticing and original than Coach House) but allowed the night club name to remain the same. Wellington is slightly diminished for the loss of Players, I contend.
I’m off to the Global Dressage grounds this afternoon to meet someone. Now that the Village of Wellington has laid down its sword and given Sr. B everything his heart desires in order to run ALL the dressage shows in town, I look forward to catching up with him and Michael Stone on what’s next for the the GD Festival. Because if I know one thing about Sr. B, it’s that he thinks of standing still as going backwards. Oh, I must ask them about the WEG bid too, now that it’s back on. Question number one: what about the hurricanes?
