In the late 1950s and through the 1960s coffee bars sprang up all over Wellington city, with names like La Scala, the Picasso, Sans Souci Coffee Shoppe, Tete a Tete, and the International Coffee Lounge run by Wellington celebrity Carmen.
Although Wellington's first restaurants opened in the nineteenth century, the mid 1930s saw the emergence of a different type of establishment, the milk bar, which in many ways was the forerunner to the modern cafe.
A menu from the French Maid Coffee House The interior of the French Maid Coffee House, 1940s By Nancy Swarbrick The rise of coffee houses in the 1940s, 50s and 60s was not a phenomenon confined to Wellington, or indeed to New Zealand.
Folk musicians at the Monde Marie coffee house by Wayne Taitoko Entertainment generally and music in particular have always been a part of the Wellington cafe scene.
New Zealand in the 1940s and 1950s has been described as a drab and uniform place. From the late 1950s, however, a café culture was established throughout the country
