James Arnott, one of the owners of Cook Brothers Bars, which sub-leases the building from DB Breweries and owns the Captain Cook Tavern trademark, confirmed yesterday the bar's last day of trading would be next Friday.
The decision to close the bar next week, rather than at the end of the month when DB's lease runs out, comes after the building's owners issued a notice for it to be vacated within 10 working days.
Mr Arnott said it would do what it could to have ''a pretty good send-off'', but he was worried about keeping any farewell party under control.
''I think the biggest challenge we will have is containing it, to be honest,'' he said.
About 1000 people had already indicated on a Facebook page, not run by the pub's owners, that they were going to the bar on Saturday for a final farewell.
He would prefer people to come in throughout the next 10 days, as opposed to everyone going along to one final party.
''[It] would be much better if we can have more of a controlled send-off, where people come in and say their good-byes and it doesn't turn into an absolute disaster where we have police and stuff turn up,'' he said.
Gregory Paterson, one of three directors of Orari Street Properties Investments Ltd which owns the building, earlier this week declined to comment about the 10-day notice, saying it was a ''complicated legal'' matter.
The company was still to find someone to take over the pub when DB Breweries' lease ran out, but was yet to give up hope of finding someone to run a pub on the site.
