Best little Bar in the Bay

You have the power to save Hastings’ heart!

Gerard Barron is the man behind the bar at Common Room, the best little bar in the Bay and Hastings' premier live music venue.

After many years pulling pints and bouncing drunks all over the UK and Ireland, Gerard established Common Room, a community hub where all are welcome to make new friends and experience top notch acts over the finest tipples and vittels.

Common Room pioneered the transformation of Hastings’ CBD from its once rough exterior to the buzzing cultural hub it is today. The bar is a bright little light in a small rectangle building that has now expanded into one of the most well respected establishments in New Zealand.

Over the past 8 years Common Room has become a community landmark, a young Grandfather to the East 200 Block now bustling with trendy hospitality, businesses, happenings and activations. Common Room’s stellar staff and welcoming hospitality is known for creating some of the friendliest, funniest and genuine experiences you can find in the country. Gerard specialises in taking on interesting outcasts and moulding them into friends for all.

Everyone’s welcome at Common Room. Its diversity and no dickhead policy has made Common Room a safe space for many, a place where outsiders can become insiders.

Common Room, and Gerard particularly, has created and curated an arts space, supports local artists, made a place for musicians, poets, and creators of all kinds, that allows all of us a window to new experiences while enjoying great beer, local wine, and fabulous cocktails. Common Room has hosted some of New Zealand’s most outstanding artists and musicians, pulling off some legendary shows that have opened this community up to a world of art and culture.

Lovers and lifelong friends have met over the firepit, children have been born from these meetings, kids play pinball and munch hashtag fries under the warm eye of the Common Room family. Bonds have been made in this space whose importance can’t be denied.

Now Common Room is in peril and you can help. We are on the precipice of losing this iconic and important part of Hawke’s Bay. Lockdown and COVID restrictions have been brutal on this little but vital small business we all know and love. We cannot lose this iconic and important part of Hastings and the accessible arts and music community we are all a part of under Gerard’s wing. Please come together to save what we have all made so that we can all enjoy it. Join us so that we might survive and thrive in the home from home that we all love.