There were dining cars on main trunk expresses from 1909, but these were removed as a wartime measure in 1917 and not reinstated for more than half a century. Railway refreshment rooms suffered from numerous complaints about the quality of their food and drink.  But generally the quality of food and service was as good as, if not better than, that found in most other restaurants or hotels in New Zealand at the time.

By the 1950s and 1960s, with reduced services and faster trains requiring fewer stops. refreshment rooms gradually closed: Marton in 1954, Mercer in 1958 and the iconic Frankton and Taumarunui rooms in 1975, bringing to an end one of New Zealand's most distinctive dining experiences.

In the 1970s, the overnight Silver Star sleeper express provided buffet meals as did the later Silver Fern railcars.

When the Northern Explorer was introduced to the daytime NIMT run in 2012, it included an onboard cafe, and in 2024 gourmet dining was added to this tourist experience.

Today the most common place to see and hear live music is at a pub that doubles as a venue. Alcohol is usually available at all. Things haven’t always been this way: alcohol first arrived here with early European settlers.  The Europeans sang while they drank and their songs were often about drinking itself, and later young women were hired to sing and dance in them.

In 1874 came the first attempt to remove entertainment from drinking establishments, when the local temperance movement then argued that any form of entertainment at a pub was a manipulative inducement towards drinking (and prostitution!). The response came in the form of the nationwide Licensing Act of 1881: pubs were banned from having concerts or theatrical performances, and in 1916 six o’clock closing became part of the New Zealand way of life.

In the hour or so between the end of the working day and closing time, men crowded together to drink as much beer as they could before the ‘supping-up’ time of 15 minutes was announced. While early closing was promoted as a way to ensure men got home to their families at a respectable hour, critics questioned their condition when they arrived. New Zealand’s binge-drinking culture has been blamed on the fact that six o’clock closing taught generations of men to drink as fast as possible.

As the 1950s progressed, dine and dance venues became increasingly upmarket, though the inability to sell wine to complete the experience was something that frustrated the owners. In Auckland, Otto Gruen and Jim Jennings opened a highly influential restaurant, The Gourmet, in Shortland Street, and used to set each table with glasses already filled with ice. If the police came in, they were water glasses; if not, customers simply filled them with whatever they brought with them. It hosted a cabaret show mocking the alcohol laws.



A cabaret against licensing laws held in The Gourmet restaurant. The comedian is Barry Linehan.

Gruen toured this cabaret show throughout the country and funded a run of flyers and cartoons protesting against the laws. The Gourmet was repeatedly fined, but Gruen finally got his way when the law was altered in 1961 to allow wine to be sold with dinner until 10pm. Female staff were now allowed to work in bars. The Gourmet received one of 10 licences that were handed out nationwide in that first year.