Cats Tango Revisited

CaseLoad was taken to task on May 13, after returning from a pheasant shoot, for an item published in this column on April 9, 2007 headed “An Occasional Guide For The Bon Vivant.”

The item reviewed four licensed establishments on Waiheke Island – The Waihitian, Malones, Island Queen and Cats Tango – that were visited by CaseLoad’s entourage during Easter weekend.

CaseLoad’s review accurately reflected the conditions as he found them, including a bar at Onetangi which had a Cats Tango sign outside.

The bar that had a Cats Tango sign up outside on Easter Monday led CaseLoad and his entourage to believe the bar they were in was Cats Tango.

And on Easter Monday this sign-posted establishment was one of the worst places he’s had the misfortune to patronize and accordingly rated it a place to avoid.

The beer was running out, as was the food, service was slack and indifferent, a 20 percent surcharge was questioned and there was no evidence during CaseLoad’s visit of tables being wiped down.

Exception has now been taken by Rochelle Tietze, co-owner of Cats Tango bar and eatery, who says the Case Load item, which chronicled the Easter Monday visit, damaged her business.

According to Tietze, Cats Tango previously occupied premises along the road at Onetangi. She said a lease there expired at the end of March and an offer was made to McCabe’s “down the road.”

This was in premises known, among other descriptions, as McCabe’s Saratoga Beach Bar.

Tietze said the lease was approved “and we more or less moved in there.”

At this point Tietze gave CaseLoad her version of matters involving the licence, stock, furnishings, signage, etc that she said resulted in obtaining a High Court injunction to go back into the premises on April 21.

However CaseLoad does not think that whatever was going on behind the scenes or whatever squabbles there are between the Tietzes and McCabes has much to do with what paying patrons thought what bar they were in on Easter Monday.

Suffice to say Tietze agreed there was a Cats Tango sign up and the public would have thought it was Cats Tango.

“That’s exactly right,” she said.

But she says Cats Tango was not running the bar at the time and no-one working there on Easter Monday was employed by Cats Tango.

Having heard Rochelle Tietze’s explanation CaseLoad – with the provisos outlined above - is happy to clarify the situation.

And acknowledges that the less than satisfactory state of affairs found in the Onetangi bar with the Cats Tango sign up on Easter Monday was nothing to do with the real Cats Tango.

So why is CaseLoad being threatened with lawyers?