
That’s Gary Livesey, co-owner/GM of Queenstown hospo neighbours The World Bar and Yonder, who’s hosting a ‘Farewell Fest’ this weekend ahead of local chain Wolf Hospitality Group taking the reins.
The affable 41-year-old — whose rollercoaster has included fire claiming the first World Bar and receiving a multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis the same year, not to mention Covid — grew up with just his mum in England’s northwest.
"We were pretty poor but my mum did amazing, she taught me really well and managed to get me a scholarship to a grammar school."
He played "semi-professional" football and rugby, captaining teams from the age of 9 — "mighty Preston North End" was his footy team.
Gary says he got good grades but from 16, 17, "suddenly found going out was more important than studying" — he didn’t drink till he was 20 but organised all his mates’ social outings.
He studied aeronautical engineering at uni — he really wanted to be an architect but the course was too long — and worked in the industry.
"But looking at all the people I was working with, I’m like ‘I don’t want to be any of you’."
He took off for a season snowboarding in France, briefly returned to work "and I was like, ‘I’m going for another snowboarding season"’.
He came to Queenstown in 2007, on a mate’s suggestion, for "literally" three months.
"I was the classic story of falling in love with the town, falling in love with a woman" — his future wife, Emily.
Gary also fell in love with hospo, working on the door at Winnies and then also The World Bar as its "softest doorman".
At The World he then became a bartender, a glassy, then duty manager before taking a marketing role.
He’d dream up ideas for "so many crazy games".
About two years in he bought the shares of founder Steve Ward’s original partner and became GM.
The World was "absolutely on fire", he says, before actually burning down on May 24, 2013, after a fire started in the Fat Badger’s kitchen below.
"It was literally like watching six years of graft just disappear before your eyes.
"And that night we drank, we sort of all cried, but it galvanised us, and it was in that moment you realise it’s not the place, it’s the people."
Gary says it was sad Fat Badger’s’ then owners didn’t extend an olive branch, and adds he and Ward lost almost $1million — "we got ripped off by the insurance company".
However, the community rallied round — "all we heard was, ‘oh, I met my husband or wife there’, or ‘my children may have been conceived in the disabled toilets"’.
Within 28 days they’d opened a pop-up, The Find, where they traded for two years till opening their current Church St premises.
"It almost gave the brand a clean slate to evolve into this more grown-up version where we focus even more on community, on food and even more on a daytime offering."
However, just six months later, probably due to stress, Gary says he went numb down his whole right side and was hospitalised for four or five days.
"I was diagnosed with MS — we definitely cried for a few days but I’ve got this solution-focused attitude where I’ll figure it out.
"The doctors were heinously useless and provided no help or strategy."
Gary says he "completely changed my diet, my lifestyle, Itake probably 25 supplements every morning".
"I barely drink now; I’m probably the least rock’n’roll bar owner you’ll ever meet. But, 12 years later, I’m healthier with MS than I would be if I’d never got diagnosed."
He notes his diagnosis "really inspired me to get World Bar reopened and then create something else that was also dietary-conscious that spawned the birth of Yonder [in 2017] — to have another aspect of community engagement that was around, again, the music, but around the health and the food and the lifestyle".
After the tough Covid and immediate post-Covid years, Gary says when you have "genuinely locally centric brands who give a f... about Queenstown life, when that isn’t necessarily always reciprocated, that’s quite hard, mentally".
It made him and Ward warm to Wolf Hospitality’s off-market offer to buy them out.
Gary stresses the businesses haven’t been in better heart, but he’s looking forward to more time with his family, including two young boys, and in the "great outdoors".
"Whatever comes my way, I’ll grab it and own it, but I’m not worried right now."
Farewell Fest
- World Bar: today, skate jam and DJ GRZLY from 4pm; tomorrow, All-Stars ’96-’25 Throwback from 9pm; Saturday, ’90s Block Party from 4pm; Sunday, Last Supper from 12pm
- Yonder: today, rinsed DnB from 8pm; tomorrow, Electric Rush takeover from 10am-3am; Saturday, ’90s Block Party with drag disco brunch from 10am; Sunday, Daily J Love from 8pm